Paid Ranking vs Organic Ranking

[Louis Porter]

An age old question... SEO or Adwords?

Organic search has always been seen as more beneficial. It's more sustainable and cost effective (in the long run) but it also receives more clicks than paid rankings. A few years ago organic ranking websites received about 94% of clicks (sorry I couldn't find a more recent figure).

Since then, Google have made a massive push to promote adwords. Last night I read on Search Engine Land that Google were experimenting on removing the line breaker between organic and paid listings in SERPS. I think this is just to make it more difficult for users to identify paid websites, which will increase the number of clicks they receive.

Will it make businesses more interested in using Adwords or will they continue to opt for SEO?
What do you think about it?

 

[Nochexman]

I think that is a very good question!

 

[Louis Porter]

I think that is a very good question!

Do you think it will see more businesses opting to choose PPC over SEO then?

 

[Nochexman]

Absolutely, if Google load the dice in favour of PPC.

 

[TODonnell]

... Last night I read on Search Engine Land that Google were experimenting on removing the line breaker between organic and paid listings in SERPS. ...

Ha, if Google do that then they stop being a search engine and start being a classified ad site. Their journey to the dark side will be complete [laughs evilly]

 

[Shopclicks]

Hello. By 'line breaker' do you mean the narrow blue line which appears above the paid ads if they are displayed at the bottom of the page? I'm in Australia and on google.com.au, that's the only line I see. There is never a line under the paid ads at the top of the page.

 

[CWT2k1]

I've always taught that a Marketing strategy should be a hybrid of many different methods. I'll still have clients run a direct mail campaign, with a tie into the the customer taking action on social media. Radio and the telly can still work. SEO and PPC should be used together. People often think of SEO as a solution to a problem, but really SEO should be a natural ongoing long term effort and strategy to provide the best content, and the best of your self so that search engines and clients both will benefit. PPC is going to help me get a direct action. For instance if I'm running a
100 quid Wordpress Redesign special, A PPC campaign with a landing page to this offer makes great sense. Hope that helps!

 

[Ideaswise]

Google may try and blur the line (e.g. by making it harder to see the dividing line at he top between paid and natural results - it is there, just very hard to see these days), but most people will always be more interested on clicking on the natural results.

 

[Louis Porter]

Google may try and blur the line (e.g. by making it harder to see the dividing line at he top between paid and natural results - it is there, just very hard to see these days), but most people will always be more interested on clicking on the natural results.

Websites in organic search are more relevant, so it will be beneficial for users to click on them instead of paid results. However, a lot of users can't identify the difference between organic and paid listings. So removing the line breaker will make it harder for them to see this.

I've just done a few searches and the line has already disappeared.

 

[Collin88]

I read somewhere that Google had come up with a patent where they didn't distinguish between ads and organic results and had gone to court over it but their appeal was rejected.

As you mentioned Louis, users prefer clicking on organic results and Google would want more people to click on ads because that is what makes them ROI. I think the choice of PPC and organic will greatly depends on ROI.

If PPC is yielding positive ROI I don't think clients would want to stop it because that is a steady source of income. Of course organic is free but if I pay 50 dollars for Adwords and my profits are 100 dollars, I will still keep investing into the medium.

 

[fisicx]

An age old question... SEO or Adwords?

Both. They work well together so don't choose one over the other.

For example, you may rank well for 'elephant nose bungs' but want to see if there is interest in 'rhino earrings'. Investing £50 in adwords will test the viability of the product. If all goes well you can get to work on optimizing for that product.

 

[Jason L]

I don't think it's either/or - it should be both

PPC ads can be set up in minutes and get you instant traffic, SEO is longer term

PPC is great to test different landing pages

And as CWT2k1 says PPC is good for promotions:

For instance if I'm running a
100 quid Wordpress Redesign special, A PPC campaign with a landing page to this offer makes great sense

 

[leveldisc]

Websites in organic search are more relevant, so it will be beneficial for users to click on them instead of paid results.

Where does that come from ?

If we must generalise then I would say the nearer the end of the buying cycle a user is, the more relevant paid is. The earlier in the buying cycle, the more relevant search is.

For example, search for "cheapest {brand} {product_code}" and search will be dominated by retailers, not solving the problem at all. Whereas, paid will have a number of price comparison sites who are solving the problem.

As a couple of people have said, do both. Target users intent not just keywords.

Why have a brilliant SEO campaign and then lose the sale, because a competitor has nailed a paid search campaign.

 

[davidjohnfarmer]

PPC can be a long term option too as long as it delivers a good ROI... where some users go wrong with PPC is that they forget to assess spend against return.

I personally think BOTH can work, AND both can be done at the same time (if initial budgets allow).

 

[Louis Porter]

@leveldisc It's a lot easier for an Adwords campaign to be customised to rank for whatever keywords you want, so long as you have the money to back it. If a business runs an Adwords campaign but has no understanding of how best to target users and optimised the budget, then they may run keywords that are just wasting their budget.

For instance, a company may supply a medical pillow that helps prevent neck pain. However, their campaign might target keywords like cushion and pillow. Most of the people that will click on the ad would just be looking for a regular pillow or cushion, therefore it would be less relevant than say the Debenhams page (that will rank 1st organically) which would display a wide selection of cushions and pillows.

Also, by targeting keywords with broad match, you can often appear for long tail keywords that are quite specific and not really relevant to what your company is offering.

Today, the only way you can rank for a keyword is to have on the page content that is relevant to the search term (obviously there is more to it than just that). Because of this, organic search results are often more relevant.

Granted companies can avoid this by simply hiring an agency with the skills and knowledge to properly manage an Adwords campaign. But we all know many businesses believe they are capable of doing it themselves. Until, of course, you point out how much money they could be saving.

 

[Louis Porter]

I completely agree, a combination of the two will always deliver maximum results. However clients quite often do not see it that way. Or they think you're just trying to get more money out of them.

I believe it works best when you use organic to rank for search terms that will meet users early on in the buying stage, then use paid search when they're in the final stages. Personally, I feel this is the best way to utilise both SEO and PPC. However, you'd still be using SEO to target final stage keywords, you would just prioritise the early stage ones first.

 

[astoller]

A quality stats reporter is a good way for a client to assess the differences between SEO and PPC.
One advantage of organic rankings is you can add more text to the listing than in PPC, perhaps 2 to 3 times more
You can also add 3 links to the foot of it...some advantages over ppc.
Also you can add trademark terms in your organic listing which is not allowed in PPC.

 

[leveldisc]

You can also add 3 links to the foot of it...some advantages over ppc.

Ad extensions ! There are loads, not just site links.

And you can change them depending on the keywords.

Also, Ad parameters, Ad customisers, display network, remarketing, business data, location targeting, scheduling, Google shopping, etc, etc.

With respect to the OP, I just think the premise of the thread is wrong. AdWords has changed so much in the last 2 or 3 years, that I don't believe the question is valid now or has been for sometime.

 

[Louis Porter]

Ad extensions ! There are loads, not just site links.

And you can change them depending on the keywords.

Also, Ad parameters, Ad customisers, display network, remarketing, business data, location targeting, scheduling, Google shopping, etc, etc.

With respect to the OP, I just think the premise of the thread is wrong. AdWords has changed so much in the last 2 or 3 years, that I don't believe the question is valid now or has been for sometime.

The original point I was making was with regards to client demand. Without a doubt the best digital marketing strategies are integrated ones, combining both SEO and PPC (along with other digital marketing disciplines such as SMM), but many clients choose to only pursue one at a time. So I wanted to find out what people believe the future holds in terms of what businesses would opt for out of the two.

SEO on it's own has already evolved over the past few years and has now become a combination of CRO, SMM, SEO and Content Marketing. Marketing by nature is ever adapting, it's our job as marketers to try and stay ahead of the curve.

 

[fisicx]

SEO on it's own has already evolved over the past few years and has now become a combination of CRO, SMM, SEO and Content Marketing. Marketing by nature is ever adapting, it's our job as marketers to try and stay ahead of the curve.

I disagree. Marketing has involved to include all sorts of things not SEO.

 

[Louis Porter]

I disagree. Marketing has involved to include all sorts of things not SEO.

Maybe I'm not being clear enough. I agree with the point you're making, I was just singling SEO out as an individual aspect of digital marketing. 10 years ago, all you needed to do to rank ((SEO) was buy links to your website. Today, you need to consider a wide variety of factors (that cross over into the previously mentioned categories).

 

[fisicx]

10 years ago, all you needed to do to rank ((SEO) was buy links to your website.

Sorry but I disagree with that as well. In many case all you needed 10 years ago was a website with some decent content. And there has always been a crossover between different marketing disciplines. Back in the days of newsgroups you could get great traffic, guestbooks were the original social media, blogs had blogrolls and even link pages added value. But those channel became saturated and corrupted by marketeers so new sources have become necessary.

As an example, people used to have pages of useful links, these became link exchanges and lost credibility with the search engines. Directories then became popular but mass submissions degraded their value so Google chopped them. Article sites rose in popularity but spun junk proliferated and Google cut them out. Guest blog posts are now popular but again all you get is bottom feeding guff so they are being ignored.

 

[Louis Porter]

When doing competitor research for in a specific B2B industry I came across many major players that rank best for industry keywords, almost all of whom had poor link profiles. By that I mean links from low quality directories, link farms, online profile links and even websites from foreign sites. There websites do not have vast amounts of content, their social engagement is limited and the user experience of the sites are mediocre at best. My point is that there links (that they must have bought) are the only thing that could be winning them favour.
Through the years, Google have tried to minimise the weighting each of these types of links and declared them as bad links. As long as marketers try to manipulate SERPs, Google's search algorithms will continue to adapt to deliver the most relevant websites to the searcher.

I feel like we're arguing the same side. That Digital marketing is constantly evolving. No?

 

[Luckythelion]

In my opinion if you are creating a long-term project, the best way is to combine paid and organic traffic, but note that for this purpose it is better to use high quality and trusted backlinks.

 

[Louis Porter]

In my opinion if you are creating a long-term project, the best way is to combine paid and organic traffic, but note that for this purpose it is better to use high quality and trusted backlinks.

I'd also add relevant links. Gaining links from relevant websites is essential to showing search engines what your website is all about.

 

[Luckythelion]

I'd also add relevant links. Gaining links from relevant websites is essential to showing search engines what your website is all about.

Sure! That's just what I meant