The cost of pay-per-click advertising is high and rising. Click fraud (estimated by some at 35%) only makes things worse and increases click costs. And now, more and more people say they don’t click on sponsored ads. Why do you ask? Simple, they don’t trust that they will get relevant information when they click on a sponsored ad instead of an organic link. Netizens now understand through personal experience that PPC ads simply go to the highest bidder regardless of relevance. In the early days (that is, 3 to 5 years ago); this was not the case. Back then, relevance mattered (Overture, now Yahoo, was a leader in this area).

So is pay-per-click where you should put your hard-earned money in marketing? And if so, how can you measure success? The short answers are: maybe and not easily.

First let me tell you, Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and Organic SEO (Search Engine Optimization) are two completely different animals. Each has its place in the world, but neither is a direct or complete replacement for the other.

However, there is one fact that stands out. In almost all cases, organic search engine optimization will eventually achieve lower costs per click than pay per click. The reason is quite simple. PPC, in addition to rising costs and fraud, requires ongoing (infinite) payment to maintain the flow of visitors to your website, while organic SEO requires (generally a more significant upfront cost) to achieve maximum visibility ( top 10 location), but then it costs very little to maintain search engine placement over time.

But how can you measure success? Using cost per click to measure the effectiveness of these two disparate marketing options is like measuring time travel in miles per hour. Pay per click is an ad spend, while search engine optimization is more like a capital investment. Both can significantly increase a company’s online visibility, but it is important to recognize that one is an ongoing expense while the other is a short-term investment with long-term benefits.

Pay per click marketing

Advertising expenses like TV ads, print ads, billboards, and yes, pay-per-click marketing all have one thing in common. They only exist as long as the sponsor is willing to pay for them. When payments stop; the ads disappear (and so does the business derived from the ads). In some cases, the ads may continue to exist for a period of time (think magazines at your dentist’s office or ads that end up on YouTube). And obviously there is a small residual profit that comes from visitors bookmarking your site or remembering your domain name. However, for the most part, pay-per-click marketing campaigns just disappear when you stop paying for them.

Does cost per click make sense for PPC? Absolutely! There is a definite moment when your PPC campaign starts and stops. And so there is a direct correlation (for the most part) with making a sale or getting a lead from a PPC visitor.

Search engine optimization

Unlike pay-per-click, organic search engine optimization does not have a clear time when the benefits (i.e. visitors) of the campaign end. When you stop paying for organic search engine optimization, the results continue for an extended period of time, usually many months or even years. Assuming your investment in organic SEO was well planned and successful (i.e. the top 10 placement for one or more quality keyword phrases), your website visitors will continue long after payments have stopped. .

Therefore, the cost per click can effectively measure the true value of organic SEO. The simple answer is no. Can not. You can absolutely know how much money was spent on the organic SEO campaign, but the total number of visitors coming to your site cannot be accurately determined until the organic search link no longer appears on the search engine results pages. .

Quality organic SEO takes time

It is also important to consider “the other side of the coin”. Launching an effective organic SEO campaign takes time. Initial results may not appear for weeks or even months. Organic search engine optimization requires patience. Unlike PPC, SEO does not provide immediate results. Remember, if your website is not in the top 30 (the first three pages of results), you are not likely to get much benefit from your organic SEO investment. I’ve seen reports showing that 98% of all searches stop within the first three pages of search results. That means only 2% of search engines go to page four and beyond. Think about your own use of search engines. Even if you get to page three, how much attention are you really paying to the websites you visit? If you don’t see what you’re looking for in 2 seconds or less, you’re hitting the back arrow, going back to the search engine, and going to the next link.

conclusion

The bottom line: if your business needs your marketing campaign up and running right away or you need to test the ROI and conversion potential of your candidate organic SEO phrases; pay per click is the way to go. PPC can also be very successful when implemented and maintained by a trained professional to maximize your ROI. But, if you want the best long-term value for your marketing investment, organic SEO can’t be beat.