Adwords vs SEO

[wevet]

I have been in the fortunate position during the last 2 weeks of being so saturated with business that I switched off adwords, completely. My average monthly spend on this business is £2-£3k per month.

I have a very niche business so the number of probable search terms are fairly limited. At any one time those productive keywords shows me on page 1 of Google and most other major search engines. Indeed not just one result on page 1 but on average 5 pages of my sites are appear on the holy grail of page 1.

Since I have switched off the adwords advertising the number of calls has dropped by around 85%.

So, my conclusion and advice is, given the choice between expending money in the hope of getting page 1, I would plough that money into adwords advertising. Now that adwords ads occupy the acreage of the screen so extensively this where the majority of people will go to not scroll down into the organic listings.

Trust me, I hate the way adwords operate, but I cannot see that spending money to try and achieve a prominent organic listing is a poor investment. My experience tends to demonstrate that organic listings if not completely irrelevant o not justify the huge sums some business expend chasing this holy grail.

 

[Alan]

Studies show that if both an Adwords and and Organic listing appear on page one then the click through rate improves dramatically ( it a reinforcement thing )

Also, when you check the organic listings, you need to make sure that you do it at least incognito mode otherwise your results won't be 'true'.

 

[mild scientist]

Alan, do you have a reference or link for that study?

 

[Alan]

There is this great new fangled tool that is called a search engine. You should try it one day it will change your life.

However here it is https://research.google.com/pubs/pub37731.html

 

[wevet]

The reference quote by Alan seems to bear out precisely what I said in my original post:
" A meta-analysis of 390 Search Ads Pause studies highlights the limited opportunity for clicks from organic search results to substitute for ad clicks when the ads are turned off. On average, 81% of ad impressions and 66% of ad clicks occur in the absence of an associated organic search result. We find that having an associated organic search result in rank one does not necessarily mean a low IAC. On average, 50% of the ad clicks that occur with a top rank organic result are incremental, compared to 100% of the ad clicks being incremental in the absence of an associated organic result."

The return on investment in SEO is very low. The more competitive the sector is the higher will the spend be to gain a prominent organic listing. That money would be more wisely spent, and I hate saying this, on PPC advertising.

 

[NCapital]

There's a couple of points I wanted to make:

I've read a few web-related threads regarding good SEO practices lately, but SEO isn't something that should be thought about after you've got a site up and running, or as part of a to-do list that's "nice to have, but we'll do it when we get round to it", it's something that should result from the way your sites are designed and built in the first place. SEO has peaked and troughed over the last 10 or 12 years in that it seemed to be the next big thing in web development a good few years ago, but as web technologies improve, and search engines get better are indexing content, SEO as a discipline is all but gone. The golden rule is basically, "if it's good for your end users, the search engines will like it." Design quick, secure, easily-navigable sites with relevant content, and you're golden.

Secondly, it might be worth remembering that the study mentioned above was conducted by Google (I believe) who have a vested interest in people paying for adverts, so of course it's going to conclude that paying for ads is more rewarding than being ranked highly in organic search results. I'm not saying it isn't true, but it's worth remembering.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

Very interesting post . We can read all the studies you can find but to actually have a credible account is a bit of a wake up call because I have always depended on about 98% seo
I have for a few months been considering spending more on adwords

 

[EC1 Solutions]

There's a couple of points I wanted to make:

I've read a few web-related threads regarding good SEO practices lately, but SEO isn't something that should be thought about after you've got a site up and running, or as part of a to-do list that's "nice to have, but we'll do it when we get round to it", it's something that should result from the way your sites are designed and built in the first place. SEO has peaked and troughed over the last 10 or 12 years in that it seemed to be the next big thing in web development a good few years ago, but as web technologies improve, and search engines get better are indexing content, SEO as a discipline is all but gone. The golden rule is basically, "if it's good for your end users, the search engines will like it." Design quick, secure, easily-navigable sites with relevant content, and you're golden.

Secondly, it might be worth remembering that the study mentioned above was conducted by Google (I believe) who have a vested interest in people paying for adverts, so of course it's going to conclude that paying for ads is more rewarding than being ranked highly in organic search results. I'm not saying it isn't true, but it's worth remembering.

.

I couldnt agree more - SEO (and keyword research) should be the foundation of any web development project. But I also think that a well researched & finely tuned niche market with relevant content is also the key to longer term organic success. You dont say how long your business or domain have been active - as it would take three to six months for organic traffic to really make a difference

 

[wevet]

My main website has been in operation since mid 2010 and we have been on page 1 of google and all other main search engines since 2010. So, I think I have got a good basis on which to evaluate the effectiveness of organic listings vs adwords. I remember in the late 90s/early 2000s that people were very snooty when it came to PPC ads. The theory being that people would gravitate towards organic listings rather than PPC ads because the implication was that those listings represented businesses with good reputation. We have passed since that time into a new generation who will go for the lazy convenience of the first lines on the page. Adwords have changed their format and they occupy the screen when the results are returned and that is where the cursor lands. Sad, annoying, expensive, but true.

 

[TheConsulter]

It's interesting how well Adwords can work. Since you switched off the Adwords you claim that the number of calls has dropped significantly. I see Adwords and SEO as two parts that complete each other. Regarding the SEO part you could for example make your website mobile/tablet friendly. It will be rewarded on search engine results.

Best of luck!