Adword versus natural listing?

[Mark_A]

So for: "Green Widgets"

We have an adword and we rank in the SERPs pos 5 page 1.

However, 100 people a month click the adword, costing us money while only 10 people a month click the natural listing.

It could just be that the adword is at the top of the page.

Or that the natural listing is below the first screen.

I could try stopping the adword, and see what happens?

Or I could continue efforts to get the natural listing higher.


We seem to be between one thing and another.

[bwnbwn]

Big question on this one

However, 100 people a month click the adword, costing us money

are you making money from the 100 clicks? That is the answer that has to be yes if not why spend.

I could try stopping the adword, and see what happens?

Yes runa test. test test test always test. you could stop it then make a new add to test conversion rates go up or down. Test Test Test.

Or I could continue efforts to get the natural listing higher.

This is something you should always be trying to do.

[Mark_A]

are you making money from the 100 clicks? That is the answer that has to be yes if not why spend.

I know that this is a very important question, but for us at the moment it is impossible to know the answer.

While we do have a shop on the site, the primary aim of the site is to generate enquiries for our sales office. It is very hard to track where people have come from when they arrive at the sales office, even harder to track what term they may have used to find the site from which they found the phone no from which they arrived at the sales office!

[bwnbwn]

So your call to action is a phone call correct. This can be tracked by setting up an 800 number specific to the adwords campaign. The only way to find this number is from the landing page you have the ad going to. Then it is just looking at the number of calls from this number to see what kind of conversions you had from your adwords campaign. We have or use a time to determine if the call was a good one or not. Just a thought to help figure out if the ads are converting.

[Mark_A]

Call to action, is phone call or email and tracking on these is asking when we remember, "how did you hear of us?" which usually elicits the not very useful response "on the web" which could mean pretty much anything.

If I were to try to establish the cost effectiveness of the adword, then I believe I also should try to establish the cost effectiveness of the SERPs as it has also a cost. A lot of work has gone into getting our #5 ranking and that has a cost.

[Mark_A]

It seems that punters may not even scroll down the first screen of results, so lazy they are!

Why should the results at the very top of page 1 be the most relevant for what you are looking for? it does not make sense!