Which Search Engine Strategy Is Right For Your Business?

With Google now responsible for up to 70% of all searches performed by Internet users, a search engine positioning strategy that focuses heavily on Google is now almost a necessity, a far cry from the situation 12 months ago.

Another category of search engines that has seen dramatic increases in usage are those referred to as pay-per-click (PPC) engines. These types of engines allow a website owner to determine exactly where, and for which keywords, a website would like to be positioned. This is best illustrated by looking at a real-life example:

Let's say you have an online shopping website, and one of your relevant keyword phrases is "jewellery". If you head to Overture - http://www.overture.com - and type in this phrase, you will see that the top 3 sites are paying $0.94, $0.93c and $0.78c respectively (USD). What this translates to is that the top website for this search term is paying $0.94c every time someone types in this term, and then goes on to click through to their site. If a site owner wishes to be placed at the top of the rankings for this keyword, all they need to do is bid higher than the $0.94c that their competitor is paying.

Overture, the premier PPC engine, now have their results listed at over 50% of the major US search destinations, such as MSN, Yahoo and others. Outside of the USA, Overture is now also starting to dominate other English-speaking search engines, and has now even started to break into foreign language markets as well. In Europe, Espotting - http://www.espotting.com - rivals Overtures influence, with their PPC results appearing on several country-specific Yahoo affiliates, and some major ISPs.

With this in mind, the question needs to be asked: Is there still a need for standard search engine optimisation (SEO) strategies? Are content-rich title tags, splash pages, even linking strategies still worth the time and effort? Or should a site owner devote all of their time towards honing a successful PPC campaign? Why should you optimise your site for the search engines if all you have to do is bid for the top positions?

Achieving a Positive Return for your Search Engine Positioning Campaign

With the growth in PPC, the competition, not to mention the cost, for the coveted top spots for keywords and phrases has increased dramatically. The average price-per-click for Overture keywords has risen to 30 US cents. Therefore, a website receiving around 1000 visitors a day from a PPC strategy (quite a small amount for a medium-sized website) could be paying $300.00 per day – or, over a 12-month period, $109,500 USD!! This is also assuming that they were only paying the average per-click price of 30 cents. This level of expenditure could make it difficult for the average website to return a positive return on their investment.

When most website owners prepare PPC strategies, they tend to focus on bidding for the most competitive keywords. After all, they argue, these are the terms that most people are searching for, and are therefore the ones that should drive the most traffic to the site. However, they are also the ones that are by far the most expensive.

An example of this is highlighted in the highly competitive area of online travel websites. The current price to obtain the no.1 ranking for the keyword “discount travel” is $0.99 cents (US) per click on Overture, over 3 times the average cost, and which may be above the allocated budget of many travel sites. In this industry, it may be worth concentrating on “traditional” optimisation techniques for getting top rankings for the primary (and expensive) terms such as "travel" or "discount travel”.

PPC techniques should be employed for secondary, more targeted phrases (such as "discount travel in Australia" or 'travelling Australia”) where costs per click are much cheaper than for the major phrases (17 cents and 5 cents respectively). There are literally hundreds of very focused phrases that can be researched and bid on. If a site was to optimise for all these keywords and phrases through traditional SEO methods, it would mean creating many pages of information and content, which in itself could be a prohibitively expensive exercise.

Looking After the Bottom Link

Concentrating your website’s traditional optimisation efforts on the terms that are the most expensive on PPC can be very cost effective. Through this method (using the travel website example from above), a website can obtain 20 referrals on PPC for $1.00 (using the phrase “travelling Australia”) as opposed to 1 referral for the same amount (using the phrase “discount travel”). If we assume the site gets a 10% conversion ratio of visitors to buyers, this means that their cost per client is $0.50c, as opposed to $10.00!

By focussing on PPC in a manner different to your competitors, and combining this with a comprehensive search engine optimisation campaign for more frequently searched upon keywords and phrases, you will gain the benefits of high exposure and visitor numbers, and a better ROI than your competition.

Whilst they are involved in bidding wars against each other for the expensive terms, you can control your costs by only bidding on those terms that provide positive ROI for you on PPC. If prices increase for certain keywords or phrases that form part of your PPC strategy, simply add them into your standard optimisation campaign - giving you the best of both worlds.

By utilising both “traditional” SEO methods, and a highly targeted PPC campaign, you can generate significant exposure, traffic and conversions through your website, in a very cost-effective manner.

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