Paying too much for Pay Per Click Advertising/Search Engine Marketing
Friday, July 20th, 2007Cons of Pay Pay Per Click for Search Engine Marketing
Pay per click advertising as a primary means of search engine marketing (SEM) can be very expensive. The average web site conversion rate on the internet is typically only about 1-2% and can be even less depending on the industry and web site itself. This means that on average you need at least 50 people to click through before some one makes an inquiry or makes a purchase.
Suddenly advertising that .50 cent pay per click bid (that seemed cheap) is costing you over 25.00$ to attract each serious inquiry or customer. Furthermore, as you are often bidding against many larger competitors the costs of the bids can increase beyond affordability or leave you with a very low ranking position on the Google or Yahoo paid listings. A more prudent search engine marketing specialist would be to increase the monthly visitors to your web site with an economical search engine optimization service.
Pay per click advertizing is less effective than SEO Search Engine Marketing
Like any in any form of marketing, studies have shown that people have began to develop “ad blindness” for the paid pay per click results. Research indicate that visitors are far more likely to click on the natural search engine results than the paid listings. If your competitors have managed to get top rankings in the natural search engine results through SEO Search Engine Marketing , it will be very difficult and expensive to attempt to get ahead of them with a pay-per-click ( PPC) listing.
Pay per click Search Engine Marketing can be time consuming to manage.
Many do-it-yourself Search Engine Marketing advertisers do not realize how difficult it is to accurately access the performance of their pay per click campaigns. It goes beyond simply monitoring the amount of increased visitors to the website.
The Keywords you bid on must be researched extensively for any hope of a positive return on your investment. Picking random keyphrases you speculate are popular with your customers is a recipe for disaster.
You must also monitor all the keyword/keyphrase terms you have bid on, their respective conversion rate and your over all return on investment. You must also continually monitor each term that you bid on to see if you have been pushed down in the paid rankings as there are constantly new bidders for any given search term.
Are Their Advantages of Pay Per Click Search Engine Marketing??
If your budget is large and your willing to do your own keyword research and weekly monitoring of your rankings and ROI, then one advantage of Pay per click does have over SEO is instant results. With top bids on strong keywords you can buy increased traffic that can begin to appear within 48 hours. However, consider that this increase in visitors, can be a very expensive short cut.
SEO VS PPC Search Engine Marketing
Although, SEO - search engine marketing results can take from one to two months to achieve significant results, the results are typically both more affordable, and longer lasting. Professional Search Engine Optimization adds value and lasting traffic to a website long after you stop paying for it whereas with pay per click, if you stop paying your visitors disappear. The difference between PPC and SEO is analogous to the to the difference between renting or owning.
Do you want to be an online business renter or a business owner ??
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