PPC and SEO Article CampaignsChoosing Between PPC and SEO Article Campaigns by Troy Mellema Web marketing is growing by leaps and bounds, and there are several ways to gain visibility for your company online. The two biggest options seem to be pay per click marketing or article marketing. There are several experts in each camp, and the debate is pretty heated regarding which campaign type shows the best results. Pay per click marketing is definitely a paid marketing technique, while article marketing relies on more natural results. With SEO articles, your goal is to get your company's website to appear in the top search engine results for several different keyword combinations. It involves linkbuilding as well as providing important content for your potential customers. One requires more money, while the other requires time and patience. So which one is better? Is there a clear winner between the two advertising methods? You can select studies that will show you the results for both marketing campaigns, but these are not usually helpful. Many will claim that PPC marketing is the best choice, while just as many will also stand behind article marketing. You will probably find that the companies who sponsored the studies already had a favorite, and the results will reflect that. For instance, the IAB, or Interactive Business Bureau, and ComScore studies are often sponsored by companies that influence the results. There is a great amount of trust in the results from these studies, but you must really take into account that a study sponsored by a PPC company will always report that PPC advertising is the best idea. There are actually several factors that you will need to consider before you can make a truly informed decision. There is proof that both the PPC and the SEO campaigns will work. The question is not which one will work; the question is which will work better for your needs. You will need to understand the criteria for each before you can make an informed decision. There are three main factors, including cost effectiveness, conversion to sale ratio, and click-through rates. Only by studying how each of these factors can benefit your business will you come to the conclusion of which campaign will work better for you. How It All Works You are relying on potential customers to seek out information that will direct them to your products or services. Each time they enter search terms in a search engine, they are rewarded with several results. Often, the top ten results are the only ones that particular consumer will see. In addition to these ten search results on the first page, there are also PPC ads to the side of the search and across the top. These ads are returned according to search terms, too, so they are quite relevant to the customer's needs. However, most searchers feel that the content results, those returned by the search engine, are "real" and will often click those before looking at PPC ads. The problem is that you need to figure out how to get your website to rank in those top ten results, whatever the keywords might be, and there are a lot of factors that go into making that happen. A natural search requires no fees, while PPC ads require payment every time someone clicks on your ad. The companies that can pay the most money will see their PPC ads placed at the top every time, which means you could find yourself with some serious competition from corporations that have more money to spend on their pay per click campaigns. With article marketing, you need not pay a fee to list your articles, and you can be sure that your customers are getting valuable content each time they conduct a search. Your potential customers may not want PPC ads at all. In fact, many consumers will stop clicking on PPC ads after the first few searches if the results are not what they're seeking. These customers will, however, continue to search through the natural results, or the actual web content returned in an Internet search, until they find the content they desire. Even those who agree with pay per click marketing campaigns will agree that there is not a lot of substance to offer potential customers. In fact, many people have found that the words used to draw in customers with PPC ads are often misleading or even dishonest. If you customers are looking for valuable information, they will likely be offended if they click on a PPC ad and are taken directly to a sales page. For potential customers that are determined to make their own decisions, this will be extremely frustrating. When you choose article marketing, on the other hand, you are immediately providing your customers with valuable information that may help them make a decision. These are not ideal for immediate results, and can in fact take quite some time to really pay off, but the long-term effects on your marketing are undeniable. Your customers will see that you are not necessarily trying to sell, but are rather trying to inform so that he or she can use the information whenever necessary. You can provide detail and make important points with article marketing, while PPC ads don't really contribute much of anything. You might get someone who's in a hurry to click on your ads, but it's the serious customers who will read your articles and remember you for later. The question is not necessarily which choice is better; it's more a question of which choice is better for your particular needs. If you are looking for something that will give you a huge number of results within a very short period of time, then PPC may be exactly what you need. If, however, you have the time to dedicate to building a solid marketing system that relies on quality of information, SEO articles are your best choice. Marketing with Pay Per Click There are advantages to pay per click marketing, with the most significant benefit being nearly instant results. The moment you pay your money, your ads will be found on search engine. SEO results take time, and you might need something as soon as possible. Your PPC ad could be all it takes to get the visitors that you need. Pay per click really does have great conversion rates, too, according to ComScore. 18.3% of searchers click on paid ads, while only 4.3% click through the organic search results, according the study. ComScore also maintains that 1.4% of these visitors will be converted into sales with PPC ads, while only there is only a .6% conversion rate for the search engine optimization articles. Marketing with Organic SEO Most consumers who conduct an Internet search will only read the first three pages of results when they are looking for information. These searchers are more likely to click on the returned search results rather than a PPC ad. These articles will also be available indefinitely, while the ads will disappear the moment you stop paying for them. Theoretically, your articles could bring you new customers forever. There are reputable sources that tout article marketing as the wise choice. iProspect and Webxico maintain that 77% of search engine users will choose the organic results over the ads listed at the top and sides of the page. These studies also say that conversion rates for article marketing is 25% higher than pay per click. Making the Right Choice What you must consider when choosing between the two is not the cost or the performance, but the longevity. With pay per click ads, you will lay out a great deal of money, but you will also see a huge surge in traffic immediately. Managing these campaigns can be pretty intense and take up a lot of time, because you must figure out how to turn those visits into sales and how to keep these customers returning at a later date. You will need to continually pay to keep the same results flowing in. Unless you have deep pockets for advertising, you will see that it's nearly impossible to keep up with your campaign. Once you withdraw the funds from your PPC campaign, your ads will disappear as well, and with them, the hopes of driving more traffic to your website. With article marketing, you do have to give up the immediate results that you could see with PPC, but you gain the trust of your customers in return. People are becoming more and more likely to ignore pay per click items in favor of articles that will give them the information that they need. People are also becoming more and more Internet savvy, which means they are less likely to trust everything that they read online. With article marketing, you have the chance to really prove to your customers and potential clients that you know your industry. It will take time, but you will begin to see results, and those results will last much longer than any you might receive with PPC ads. The difference between the cost is also something you should consider. Pay per click can be expensive, and only gets more costly the more people click on your ads. You will be competing with thousands of other companies for those top spots, which will also take a toll on your advertising budget. The moment you pull the plug on those advertising dollars, it all goes away. Article marketing will cost you next to nothing, unless you want to hire a professional to provide you with well-written content. Once they are in the article directories, they will stay there indefinitely. If cost is the issue, there is certainly a clear winner. Determining Return on Investment When determining the return on your investment, it really depends on what you see as a return. If you consider instant traffic to your website the return that you were looking for, then PPC ads will certainly offer that. Initially, PPC ads will bring you great numbers of visitors, but these numbers will fade. You will find that you are soon paying more per paying customer than the ads are worth. There is a slower return with article marketing, but there are other things to consider before discounting SEO writing. First of all, your actually monetary investment does not need to be large at all. Secondly, once your investment does start paying off, it will never stop. Your articles will always be out there driving more visitors to your site and convincing customers that you're an expert in your field. There are convincing studies that show the return on investment with organic search results are more consistent than those with pay per click, as well. Gord Hotchkiss breaks it down with some pretty impressive numbers. If there are fifty high traffic search terms, there are 2.8 million searches for these each month. That would equal 456,000 visitors for PPC and 153,000 visitors from article marketing, according to ComScore's statistics. The cost for these 456,000 PPC visitors equals around $500,000 with a cost per click of $1.18. SEO companies, even the most expensive ones, will only charge around $10,000 per month. This means that the cost per click on your articles averages about $.07. Even if you consider that PPC often has a higher conversion rate, you will still pay nearly $150 per person. Compare this to the 611 people who will visit because of your article marketing, which will only cost you around $16 per person. You are also likely to see a higher quality of customers and your articles will always generate traffic for you. Keep in mind that PPC traffic will often leave as soon as they land on your site. Even if you do see a higher than normal conversion rate, you will still have to pay for all of those visitors that just stopped in long enough to charge you for the click. Article marketing will bring you customers over and over again without ever charging you for the additional clicks. Article marketing is a one-time investment. You find someone to create some great content, put it out there for your customers to find, and your job is done. With pay per click, you will keep paying and keep paying, with little more to show for your efforts than a drained advertising budget and puffed up traffic numbers. Words You Want specializes in SEO article writing and ebook writing for the Internet. Our knowledge of SEO writing and article marketing will assist you in driving more traffic to your website and increase your search engine ranking.
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