Yahoo Search Marketing Pay Per Click Advertising Forum

If your potential client is after ROI then sponsored listings offer a good way to determine how much your investment is costing. SEO is more difficult to determine the exact ROI, but it can be done. (Time needs to be factored into both SEO and Sponsored listings) SEO may prove to be more cost effective for high traffic keywords.

If your client wants Brand recognition then you could split sponsored listings into smaller categories: (1)Pay-per-click is great for branding purposes, unlimited impression at 0 cost; (2)Adwords and other programs that use CTR or Pay-per-impression are good for branding but not quite as cost effective. SEO is harder to use for branding, depending on the SE you may not get a great description for your site. You would then have to focus on brand impress when visitor actually hit your client's site.

You need to know what your client is after, in order to help them know what combination is best for them. Time may play a big part of their business plan. How soon do they need to see results.

Personally I think that SEO, Pay-Per-Click, and Pay-per-Impression all work together. Each targets a different market segment. Also remember your client's marketing objectives may change over time.

Consultant: It all depends. If your budget permits and that is all you are going to do is sponsored listings, then don't worry about it.

Client: Okay. But what's all the hubbub about when I read about search engine marketing?

Consultant: Ah-ha, now we're talking the full spectrum of marketing and not just sponsored listings.

Today's SEO/SEM should have a thorough understanding of basic usability issues, html coding and validation, use of cascading style sheets and web copywriting skills.

Most clients are going to opt for a PFI (pay for inclusion) program also. That's where your skills and talent set will come into play in factoring the overall ROI of the clients online marketing campaign. You still need to optimize content for the web and we're not just talking search engines here. We're talking about usability, functionality, cross platform compatibility, and a host of other issues that need to be addressed in a well rounded search engine marketing campaign.

3 years ago 100 % of traffic was SEO generated. With PPC the top slots are now flogged off but many users still look past the PPC listings.

An exceptionally designed site (whether you call it SEO or just good design) can aspire to being an authority on the topics of interest, thus commanding it's own future.

If Paid-for advertising cost increase dramatically your ROI reduces dramtically. If the Paid-for model changes e.g. Google drops Adwords, and Overture switches to something new where the new design can not meet your needs... your strategy is?

There is a least one company (using PPC) which offers submission services to 300,000 search engines, for a mere $29.99 and they do everything they promise.

Great service, great prices... zero "return customers" - don't figure.

I agree. Search Engines, Pay-per-click, Banners, and other similar forms of traffic only fulfill the prospecting step in any sales cycle.

I thought that prospecting methods was the focus of this thread. Any discussion about service, price, ad copy all focus on different steps in the sales cycle.

They are all important when considering ROI, but they really don't help a discussion about prospecting (SEO vs. PPC/PFP) When comparing prospecting methods it is all about the number of visitors that get to your site. Methods of pre-qualifying visitors(prospects) which impact ROI is a big part of prospecting.

Morty, remember it depends on what your client is trying to accomplish as to which prospecting methods are best. If you are trying to pre-qualify prospects than sponsored listings give the ability to better control the listing's description. But in terms of raw traffic, SEO may have an advantage over the long term.

Both SEO and PPC service models have their advantages and disadvantages.

PPC Advantages

PPC is easy - you need not alot of knowledge and skills to develop fruition. A great advantage to someone who does not have the time to learn optimization or the upfront to paid for it.

PPC is direct market access - limited competition for eyeballs

PPC is exceptional for short term specials, holiday promotion, etc.

PPC has no middleman to rely on for performance

PPC highly adaptive to market trends (e.g. last week "widget" was hot - this week "widgets" is)

PPC is near-real time no monthly waiting to produce results

PPC is highly cost effective (e.g. can produce 3000% return on investment)

PPC is highly effective in controlling market saturation (e.g. - out of inventory - immediate ads drop). Powering down your web site in other model can have long lasting negative effects. Noting that telling already paid customers they need to wait 3 week is very bad.

PPC Disadvantages

Paying for the entry when you don't have the necessary products for the buyer (e.g. using "software" when the only software you have is a Windows 3.1) and few qualified visitors

Using informative phrases that offer signifcant clicks but possibly 95% of click are "free information seeking" only and never buy.

Quick loss of placement in favor of someone else willing to pay more than your budget allows.

Stuck with the model - when the search engine adapts to a new scheme you "must" meet/match their Terms of Service and/or changes.

If PPC is the only service used - you will never be an authority web site on anything - and authority defines - market trust, and your credibility.

PPC never allows the web site owner to truly fault find problem areas of the web site.

PPC favors big business with large marketing budgets.

SEO Advantages

SEO has incredible ROI. Mostly pay per work - thus per thousand conversion cost per unit sold is less. PPC this goes up and up.

SEO is ongoing designing. Ranked performance is a measurement in itself of how good the site is (as a whole).

SEO is highly adaptive to market diversity. (e.g. a single user that conducts a deep search finds you, identifying new opportunities to expand. (with PPC your stuck with your own knowledge of markets, and/or the engine's ability to distinguish commonality). Five words on the page can match perfectly to a query not ever considered.

SEO is developing authority status - which is directly associated with brand. Many believe branding is reserved for Microsoft or IBM but brand equates to quality - thus no brand potential you have no quality recognition.

SEO in the long-term in more cost effective - as time passes cost reduces. With PPC cost only go up not down.

SEO is more adaptive to search engine changes (medium changes). An algo tweak - can be quickly observed and countered.

SEO provides growth and theming - back to design - to rank high a site must be developed with the market in mind with lots of informative content which develops links, which develop enhanced preformance which develops more links, and so on.

SEO puts the web site owner in the drivers seat - PPC puts the engine in the driver seat.

SEO has a better chance of delivering return customers. You must really think about what the market wants. With PPC it's more what the company wants.

SEO Disadvantages

SEO normally has a relative long time to market. (can not be achieved in a day, a week and sometimes months).

SEO is a process of adjustments (tweaking) and more dependent on competitive landscape.

SEO normally requires a knowledgeable third party who may or not be what they appear (e.g. not very good).

SEO can be a disastrous overnight. (penalties, bans) which really sucks since the time to market was long.

SEO can be very expensive upfront.

SEO has a long learning curve and with many abrupt changes where the site's owner can drop quickly from page 1 to page 100.

SEO effects are not immediately seen thus something completed 3 months ago can be mistaken for changes made last week.

And lots and lots and lots of mis-information available that can have a site owner going in the wrong direction - where recover is near impossible (have a new client that did this - then abrupt changes directions, and now the site makes no sense).

A PPC campaign will not work for a poorly designed site without the right call to action messages.

Think of all of the solutions as pieces of a jigsaw, virtually 100% of the time a solution should include:

- pre-action consultancy to decide on objectives and confirm that the web site is up to the task. If not, get that part of the jigsaw put in place as early as possible.
- implementation - put in place the things that will deliver the objectives in the most cost effective and time efficient way (this is fast becoming hybrid campaigns of SEO/PFI/PPC)
- monitoring and analysis of activity from all sources with a seperate ROI calculation for each, as well as an overall ROI calculation
- review regularly to check that the objectives remain the same and the message is consistently hitting the mark. PPC has a habit of going stale if you don't look at your ads regularly.

However, I have always seen a couple of disadvantages as advantages and some advantages as disadvantages.