Balancing Paid and Organic Search Listings

Search Marketing Special Report

Does your company's web site really need to be listed in both the organic or "natural" search results as well as the paid "sponsored" results? According to a panel of search engine experts at a recent Search Engine Strategies conference, the answer is yes. Most search engine marketing experts agree that a combined approach that relies on both organic search engine rankings and paid listings works best.

Higher click-through ratios

According to recent research, web sites that are listed at the top of the organic search results and the paid listings will triple their click-through ratio. Three times more people will visit your web site if it is listed in both places because there is a “second opinion effect.” Searchers see both listings and are encouraged by the fact that a web site is listed in both the organic listings and the paid listings.

Greater penetration of search results

By optimizing your web site’s content to rank well in the organic search results, your web site can be found using many keyword phrases and combinations of keywords. Good organic search engine rankings typically take months to achieve, and must be maintained on an ongoing basis. Pay per click (PPC) can be implemented quickly—it can also be turned on and off as needed, depending on your company’s budget and current promotions.

More keyword research

Keyword research tells you how many people per day search for which keyword terms. There are many tools available that allow you to perform keyword research even before you achieve organic search engine rankings or start a PPC campaign. Once organic search engine rankings are achieved, keyword research using existing web site statistic data allows you to enhance your listing of keywords—you can combine your organic keyword list with your PPC keyword list to focus on the keyword phrases that bring you the best ROI.

Build credibility

Organic search engine rankings provide very high levels of credibility and broad coverage on potentially every search engine worldwide. When a web site is listed well in the organic search results, the web site usually is found for a chosen keyword search and also many combinations of keyword phrases related to those chosen keywords. It’s those other combinations of related keywords that bring a web site more visibility in the search results, frequently causing a web site to appear to be found “for everything” related to a certain industry. The results can be staggering—a properly optimized web site can appear in the search results more often and for more related keywords than a company who has not done any organic search optimization.

Appearing in the paid results also helps to build credibility — just because a searcher doesn’t click on a paid ad and visits the web site, doesn’t mean they haven’t seen the company’s sponsored listing. Paid listings also can provide some visibility and credibility for certain keywords that aren’t usually obtainable through organic search engine optimization.

Back to newsletter.

In This Issue

Increase Visibility in a Selected Location

Did you know that if you run pay per click ad campaigns you can target searchers located in a specific location? In addition to keyword phrase criteria to determine when an ad is displayed, you can also use geotargeting to display ads based on the country, state, or city level.