Seo is not an overnight operation. To progress with seo in the real world requires patience. Some campaigns for example take 6 months to get started. This can be due to a new website launch and also due to the competition levels and strength of the marketplace.
You can employ adwords to jump ahead of all the organically listed websites on Google’s first page. The click through rates are actually quite small for the sponsored ads listed above and to the right of the natural listings. Google is quite open about this and displays the info once you are signed into your adwords account. Depending on the keyword you can pay a few pennies to £20 + per keyword. Google also displays this info.
Google will tell you how many clicks your ad can expect to get according to your budget. If you put in a mock budget and raise it to a £100 a day budget spend you will see the click through rate of the top listed adwords ad. It can range from a fraction of a percent to 3-5%.
So why should you opt for organic seo if it can take so long?
- The click through rates once top rankings are achieved are better. (41% for the No 1 listed result).
- Your website won’t stop running at certain times of the day like on adwords if your daily ad spend is breached.
- Google traffic is targeted. If you select the correct keywords associated to your business, products or services, browsers are usually looking to buy or hire your service.
- Once your website is established it can be easy to target new keywords and rank in a short period of time.
- You don’t have to pay each time a visitor lands on your website as you do with adwords (Pay Per Click).
- As opossed to traditional forms of advertising your website is live 24 hours a day. If you get it ranked highly it will be your salesman that never takes a break.
- With seo you can change your text copy and meta titles and see how Google reponds. This and other on page refinements can give you a increase or decrese in rankings.
- Analytics and conversion tracking can produce more profits for your business and uncover new keyword trends.
- Google takes 70-90% of all UK search engine traffic. Google usually provides 60% of a websites traffic. The rest is either people directly typing in your web address or being referred by links. If you rank highly Google can provide a massive part of your online income.
This is not an adwords vs seo debate. Adwords is great for testing the water and getting more of an indication what the true keyword levels are. It’s great for seeing how customers interact with your website. In the long run seo should overtake your marketing spend on PPC. But adwords if applied correctly can provide you an income before you become successful with seo.
In terms of the internet and the amount of browsers on it every day, the potential for increasing business is exponential. If you have a website and it can’t be found then you are missing out on the huge traffic and financial benefits Google can offer. The internet is a massive marketing channel, and it is easier to test, analyse and track than traditional marketing channels.
But if you don’t apply basic business principles and still keep up with direct sales, retaining customers, selling great products, offerring a unique selling point and employing sales staff you can soon go bust, even if you have great rankings. Consumer confidence is vitally important for the future success of your business.
