Organic ads v/s paid ads

[kennyshan]

hi all

I recently read an article which said that most of the money being investes in ppc ads is going down the drain....Majority of the users, approx 47%  hardly pay attention to them...
What are your opinions on this.

Kenny

[tonyklaus]

hi,
I think as casual surfers have become more savvy, they do shy away from paid listings. I am speaking from experience here, as [back in the day] when I was computer illiterate I instinctively stayed away from listings inside tables or with colors around them. Don't ask me why--I have the same reaction to banners, too.

[Johng]

I dont think that paid ads is money completely down the drain..it has been useful for me ...i think relying only on organic searches is not a good idea..Search engines keep on changing their algos and thus it is difficult to maintain a good organic rank..On the contrary ppc rank can be maintained... further it has been instrumental in generating a positive roi for me...but yes relying only on ppc is also not advisable ... i think both are important...


john

[sam]

From observing user behavior:

They prefer to find their "answer" on the first page. Generally, they scan the editorial listings first (because they are on the left side of the page and people read from left to right) and then they scan the paid listings.
I don't believe that the vast majority of people have any idea what the difference is..People are somehow not too receptive to these ads...

[mark]

Hi all,

There are definitely many people, myself included, that will not click on paid listings. However, there has to be plenty that do. Otherwise we would not be witnessing the tremendous increase in this kind of online advertising.

I can testify to the fact that PPC type of listings get much higher click-thru rates than the old banner or other graphical tyes of paid search engine advertising which at last check weren't even generating .05% click-thru rates.

That is why I am of the firm opinion that if one is serious about search engine marketing, they should perform traditional SEO as well as PPC but traditional SEO should take precedence over PPC.

Bottom line IMO, do both if you have the budget and measure your ROI on the PPC carefully because many will benefit from it

[paul cartwright]

I would say that in an ideal world, you would use both strategically to maximize your site's profile. However, budgetary constraints often make this impossible, and trying to do both on a limited budget and with minimal resources can result in neither campaign producing ideal results.
   I feel that Small businesses with extremely tight budgets may find that pay-per-click is a better investment than organic search engine optimization because a pay-per-click campaign will almost always cost less - good search engine optimization companies simply do not work for $100 per month.
       
          With a high enough budget, you would be able to have an effective organic search engine optimization campaign running in tandem with an effective pay-per-click campaign. But i believe that certain situations make PPC much better option both fiscally and strategically.


Paul

[ankur4rocks]

hey paul

good post ! Very realistic and practical