PPC or SEO

[Silverfern]

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Hi everyone,

I've just been reading a lot about google ppc accounts and everything that seems to go with PPC in general (got a couple of interesting books from the library), also reading all the threads on here about PPC, I guess im really interested to see what people on here actually use themselves?

I'm not after any free advice, im just curious if people on here use mainly PPC, mainly natural results, or a bit of both, and do you steer clear of either for any particular reason?

I read the thread about how much people earn from PPC, and it seems it's not the most popular choice for most affiliates, is the bidding likely to become to high for smaller businesses as it becomes more popular?

I also noticed that (this is a random example) when searching for "greek recipes" overture said that 17000 people searched on that last month, yet there where only two ads for PPC when I searched for it on google, there seems a lot of space left to put PPC ads in place when alot of people are searching for "greek recipes", I know theres a limit to what you can sell on something like that, books from amazon springs to mind, it just seemed strange to me.

Then again I havent yet had a good crack at PPC or SEO so i'm just curious on others views.

Many Thanks for any feedback,

Ian

[ian]

PPC gets my vote as its quick and effective once you know your market.

Then its a case of basic maths - take into account the costs, conversion rate, revenue, and sales targets - and you know when to continue or cut your losses.

IMHO seo is a long term play as its tricky to get listed for competative terms quickly. SE's also like to change the way they rank pages - not that I'm bitter about it.

That said you can use seo as another channel for those niche ppc keywords that have low natural search matches on google. If you can bang out a page out for a mis-spelt ppc word that gets a few sales a month, you just lowered your ppc costs and increased profit.

With more profit, you re-invest in more expensive keywords, and get bigger profits. So the cycle continues.

[Sammy aff]

The only way is seo big full stop. (ok some guys get lucky with niche stuff) just like poker
I am of course talking as an affiliate, not a merchant.
SEO is free, a new site cost next to nothing...competitors will kill your budget in a matter of hours, assuming you are a newbie...just like poker.
If you have good niche keywords that work on ppc you will 10-fold the same on free serps, if they are truely niche it is easy to seo in any case.

ppc is for pros...and i aint bluffing

[Silverfern]

Hi,

Thank you both for the feedback, seems theres a great mix of what affliates prefer to use, i like the fact PPC is more instant as i'm not sure how good my SEO skills are, although i've now read more books articles etc than I care to remember on SEO, i'ts just hard to find the time to be honest.

Thanks again

Ian

[drivetowin]

I think a lot depends on whether you are looking for a quick return or a long term strategy (not that PPC cant be a long term thing too - particularly once you reach the heights of people like Kieron) but rather in terms of how quickly you want to see results, plus of course how much budget you've got to play with.

PPC gives instant results, so you can quickly see what works and what doesn't, but certainly to begin with it is a bit of a gamble, and as with all gambling, don't play with money you cant afford to lose.

SEO on the other hand requires minimal financial investment but the investment of hours and hours and hours of time, and then having the patience of a saint to wait for a few months to see how well the hours of work have worked...... it's certainly a long game but the rewards can still be great.............OK using SEO I could never deliver a 24 hour result like the top PPC guys can but taken over a whole year I would guess our total profits are not that different even though an equivalent PPC guy's business may have had five times my turnover, the money to pay for the PPC ads has to come from somewhere - so it's profit that matters.

SEO is also imho a lot less stressful than PPC - using PPC if a merchant/network is late paying or reverses a load of transactions, or a merchant goes belly up, it can be the death knell of the PPC affiliate if he/she had lots of money spent on clicks for that merchant - for the seasoned SEO affiliate like myself the same event is a pain the proverbial but it has no real noticeable effect on my long term stability. Likewise if network tracking stops for a whole network or for a merchant for me it is an inconvenience, for PPC affiliates it is an immediate hit on the bottom line.

PPC though is not subject to the vagaries of the search engine alogrithms/shuffles/dances/nervous twitches - though once you've been doing SEO long enough you learn how to ride the peaks and troughs, though sometimes it is as rough a ride as sailing on a surfboard through the roaring forties..

So really its a case of horses for courses..........

[gcmorris]

I use both Pay Per Click and Search Engine Optimisation! The balance depends on the cost of the clicks and the frequency of keywords.

SEO is only free if you do the work yourself. Some companies will charge a lot for optimising a site. It is a guessing game as to what generates the best return.

PPC has to be managed carefully to ensure that you do not spend too much. The wording of the campaigns is very important to attract the right people and deter the time wasters.

I generally recommend a scatter gun approach, spreading budget and time in several different ways. Putting all your money on one hope, e.g. Google Adwords, could be an expensive mistake or a big success! It is not easy to predict which.

Graham Morris
www.metatune.com

[Operandi]

As someone who has spent the last three years honing my SEO skills and nurturing my sites up the SERPS, I have recently switched to PPC and I am so glad that I did.

For example, I had an industry leading site that had been #2 in Google for all its competitive keywords for the last six months - until the last Google update which has destroyed all that work as the site is listed around page 12 now. Why was it an authority site on one day and not the next? The lack of control over your earnings, reputation and authority that an SEO only strategy engenders is frightening.

You are completely in the hands of the SE's and their algorithm shifts and there is nothing you can do about it. It is not good practice by any measure to have so little control over the fundamentals of your business. I wish I'd know that then.

PPC on the other hand is, to me, far more of a science than art, and requires far more business acumen. I feel like I'm running a business again - managing sales and cost of sales, ROI and turnover.

Maybe I've been lucky as so far I've had incredible success with PPC. In fact I am earning more than I've ever earnt (and I've always been considered a high earner). I like the fact that I can see what is doing well and what isn't. What is attractive to my customers and generates sales and how I can monitor the effects of tweaks here and there. I am in control again, and I love it.

It is not an exageration to say that if I had chosen the PPC route and had this success, rather than the SEO route, three years ago, I would be a multi millionaire now. I'm kicking myself for wasting so much time - however I've seen the light and I'm really going for it.

I will still SEO my sites, as it's a habit I can't get out of, however any income derived from SEO success will be purely incremental to my strategic PPC earnings.

[drivetowin]

I think it's true that anyone just using natural search on one or two sites is treading a dangerous line which is too open to risk.

Once you've established your first [magic number known to me] sites making money life gets a bit less fraught though - yes a couple may get knocked in a serps update but equally a couple that had fallen out of favour will probably fall back in.

The trick is in surviving long enough to get sufficient money making sites out there in the first place..............and developing other ways of getting traffic to / monetising visitors to your sites without relying on the big G.

[Operandi]

I think it's true that anyone just using natural search on one or two sites is treading a dangerous line which is too open to risk.

I agree, totally. I have about 20 SEO driven sites, all doing well in the SE's (apart from the one that got hit recently), and all are with medium traffic levels, however with PPC I earn in a day what all these sites combined earn in two weeks, sometimes a month.

If you have a major site such as www.dpreview.com, with huge volumes of traffic and a very dedicated user base, it will be insanely profitable - far more so than PPC driven enterprises, and also reasonably immune from the vagaries of search engines, however such sites are very few and far between.

[Smile 4 You]

I have to agree with PPC, our site is in position 3 on Google for our top earning keyword but we also use PPC on that keyword. Turn off the PPC and the sales really dry up.

Unfortunately I think most people these days just click on the ads near the top of the page and donb't bother to look further down

[Brendon]

>> Unfortunately I think most people these days just click on the ads near the top of the page

It's always been that way - barring amazingly spammy looking snippets, #1 gets exponentially more traffic than #2 fpor a given term, which gets exponentially more than #3 and so on.

PPC ads "going north" can mess with that a bit, but if you can arrange to have the #1 slot for both on a term, the returns can be truly amazing

[Sinbad]

I'm only using SEO at the moment but why would you bid on a keyword that you are ranked well for organically? Wouldn't you be better off using that money on keywords you are not ranked well for?

[yesasia]

Silverfern> so how did it work out ? ( just notice the original post is from 06-08-05 ; ) )

[Silverfern]

Hi Yesasia,

I was a bit surprised to see this thread pop up again I've gone down the SEO route, just seemed like a better choice for me as i also work full time, i just work on sites when i can find the time, and learning web design as i go!!

[monk-i]

Wow nice old thread dug up! Interesting though and seems to have sparked a bit of interest!

Like any strategy though 'a little bit of this, a little bit of that' means you aint getting bit in the backside all the time if one area drops.