'Natural Listings' v. 'Paid for Listings'

Is it still worth chasing the free listings?

[Grocer]

I'm confused. I've had meetings with a variety of SEO companies and some optimise your site, to ensure that they are prepared for natural, unpaid-for, listings. Others, however, think that only paid-for listings are worth working on these days.

I'd be very grateful for some impartial advice.

Thank you!

[trillianjedi]

I say tomato, you say tamayto, let's call the whole thing off.....

You'll always get people at either end of the spectrum on this one. The best people to listen to are those with experience in your particular field of online business.

Personally, I have never ever paid for a listing in my life, and intend never to either (unless it becomes standard for all SE's to charge).

You get in eventually, it just takes a little longer. I'd rather spend the money on AdWords - or regular press advertising (a lot of people forget that folks do still read magazines and newspapers!).

As long as google have the market share they have, your google listing should buy you enough time to let the other SE's catch up. You do have all your eggs in one basket over that period though of course. And it can take a while.

There's one view. Now wait for all the postings to say "TJ is wrong, you should always pay for a listing...." LOL

I'm saying tomato.

TJ

[Serio]

A lot depends on the terms. Certainly un-paid for listings are still very viable - maybe the companies that only do paid-fors are just not very good at SEO.

[rcjordan]

Chasing 'natural' backlinks can be very time-consuming with no guarantee of success. Many are not willing to pay for time spent attempting to get listings.

[Grocer]

Thanks for these replies.

Am I correct in thinking that natural listings are still important in getting listed on Google, Inktomi and Fast? Does anyone know where I can get stats on this sort of thing, i.e paid-for placement v. natural listings?

I'm really new to this, so apologies for the very basic questions!

Thank you again.

[Terrier]

I agree with Serio it does depend on the terms. I would suggest you do lots of research on your keywords see what other are paying. I have noticed recently some companies paying huge amounts for a keyword that really was not all that competitive. I think it pays to do both SEO and PPC.

[killroy]

Lets just say, within two weeks from inception and idea, I rank in about 10 or so keywords on page one for an extremely competitive high-money niche.

I think there is always a skill scale. In SEO it's logarithmic. there are a million people who understand what it is, 10000 who really get it, 100 who are pretty good at it and 10 who don't even have to try ahrd to beat out al the others. And 1 who lives the stuff so intesely he doesn't even bother to try anymore as it's hardly interesting for him.

So, for the broad base of people who do SEO and beat out others, there is a small number that can easily out SEO any of them, and a HUGE number to whom it's all just magic.

So it really depends on the skills of whom youR'E hireing, and probably on how much you'Re prepared to spend.

But the really interestign thing is that there is always somebody better and more cunning then the guy you just hired. Just fewer and fewer as you go up.

SN

PS: I consider myself in the fair middle, which, lucky for me, in my small country which is slightly internet retro puts me near the tip of the SEO-berg.

[edit_g]

I think it pays to do both SEO and PPC.

This is what I think as well. Also, with PPC it is easy to guarantee results - with natural SEO you have to be "hot stuff", lucky and patient to get great results - and even then it is hard to give a guarantee, apart from an increase in traffic.

A lot of the SEO's who are just doing PPC and telling their clients that there's no point going after natural listings are just plain lazy or bad at SEO. They never mention, for example, the low session times and conversion rates which paid results generate when compared to natural results.

[makemetop]

At Search Engine Strategies London in June this year, representatives of LookSmart, AltaVista, FAST, Inktomi and Ask Jeeves (among others) agreed that overall, between 20-25% of surfers click on sponsored listings when they appear. This means that 3 out of 4 people are clicking on natural results - though the figures can be skewed by the simple facts that sponsored listings do not appear for every search and the listings may have been poorly phrased. Also people tend to click on more than one listing on a page - so some who clicked on a sponsored listing may well click on a natural listing.

But whichever way you look at it, it is good to have natural listings. To say they don't work is just plain wrong! And so do PPC listings.

[glengara]

I'm edging towards the dual site strategy, an optimised informational site for the left side that "supports" an un-optimised high octane selling site on the right side.

[trillianjedi]

I'm edging towards the dual site strategy, an optimised informational site for the left side that "supports" an un-optimised high octane selling site on the right side.

That's my model - with the informational site reinforced a little bit with AdWords if not competing with the shop site.

That covers both traffic streams.

TJ

[Vermont]

I concentrate on the free engines first. The most important element overall is optimizing the website itself for high placement. Then submit.

[dougs]

Do them both and cover all basis.

Build content pages for the free engines and tune them.

Drive the ppc listing straight into a ecom page.

Dougs