Paying when you already have a top ranking.

Smart move or Dumb move?

[Travoli]

Looking at Google SERPS today, I see a competing service with a #1 rank on a competitive term AND an adwords banner running. It's the same on Yahoo. They have the #1 Overture bid AND a top website rank for the same keyword phrase.

First thought that came to my mind was "duh."
Second thought that came to my mind was that it might be smart to take as much targeted space as possible and increase the chances of a click.

Does anyone else have competitors that rank well AND pay for advertising on the same terms?

Anyone out there with terms competitive enough to warrant this type of spending? Was it worth it?

[agerhart]

Travoli, that is a very interesting point.

I think that it depends on a few things. What is the size of the budget for the company that has the #1 ranking is considering the advertisement?

I think I agree that owning all of that prime real estate, the #1 listing and the advertisment space, can only help. I suppose that this can only be measured in terms of ROI. Trial and Error.

[vitaplease]

I used to do it with Google adwords. Not necessarily for added exposure, but for a short term to evaluate the number of impressions on Google compared to other key-phrases the add was also running on. Its the only way to know how many people use that search phrase in Google and you can get stats per country!

[rogerd]

I'd say it comes back to ROI. I have one site that does an Overture listing and, for some Oveture partners, also has a top SERP listing. It's a cheap click, though, under 10 cents. The Overture listing has a few advantages - it appears before the regular listings, and many users can't differentiate between paid and real listings. Also, the Overture listing gives you fairly complete control over your exact listing text for that keyword, and also provides coverage on some SEs where you may not have the top ranking.

If I was paying $2.00/click and had the top free listings, I might look at this very differently!

[seth_wilde]

It's something I like doing when possible.. Not only do you virtually assure they'll visit your site, But from a branding viewpoint its great too (leaves the strong impression that your the market leader).

I have a client for their main "money phrase" is ranked #1 on Yahoo has the #1 sponsored listing and has a keyword targeted banner ad running on the top and side panels.

[TWhalen]

In the past week , the sites that I work on for my company have actually benefitted from using paid listings under keywords that I have already gained top "free" listings for.
Right now, there are several keywords that I have top 5 rank for in the Inktomi based engines that got me plenty of clicks, but as soon as I purchased Overture listings (last week) for those same keywords, my clicks for those search terms almost doubled.

I used to think paid istings were silly if you already had the rank, but I see it differently now. If you have the budget, I think its worth it.