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PPC v Natural Search - A Cost Comparison Case
Study
by Glenn Murray
Glenn Murray | Advertising Copywriter & SEO Copywriter *
The attraction of Pay Per
Click (PPC) online advertising is
undeniable. Each click costs
virtually nothing, you only pay for the
clicks you get, and you set your
own daily budget so you know
exactly how much you're going to
spend. Most importantly, your
listing appears instantly.
On the other hand, a high
ranking in the natural search results
seems unobtainable. There's
a perception that hundreds of
thousands of other
businesses are competing for your keywords,
and that makes it seem like
a real rat-race. And it also seems
like such a big mountain to
climb; it's true that it can take months
to reach the first page
for your target keywords. To make matters
worse, thousands of opportunistic
(and some very dodgy) `SEO
companies' have emerged,
looking to make a quick and big buck
out of market naivety. So to
CEOs, BDMs, marketing managers,
webmasters, and business
owners, the road to natural search
ranking seems expensive, risky,
and beset with traffic.
But does this mean you should forget natural search?
Definitely not!
Firstly, most user studies to date have found that people pay
more attention to natural
search results because they're more
relevant. That's the foundation
of the success of companies like
Google and Yahoo (and the
reason they keep their indexing rules
a secret).
What's more, it's important to put things in perspective. Hundreds
of thousands of other
businesses may be competing for your
keywords, but in most cases,
they're at least as confused and
disheartened as you. So the
sooner you figure out the real story,
the sooner you'll have the
jump on them.
And yes, it can take a while to reach the top, but because your
competition is ' for the most
part ' traveling blind, your early
progress will normally be
quite quick. In fact, for most businesses,
it's not until you reach the top
few pages that your progress will
slow.
And again yes, there ARE some dodgy SEO companies out
there. But there are also some
very good ones. (Go to
www.WebProNews.com and sign up to a forum if you want to find
out who they are.) So long as you know
the basics of SEO you
won't be taken for a ride.
(See http://www.divinewrite.com/SEOCEO.htm for a rundown of
SEO basics in layperson's terms.)
But let's talk bottom line'
Is it more expensive to obtain a high ranking?
Certainly not! In comparison with other forms of advertising ' even
PPC in the long run '
reaching the top of the rankings is NOT
expensive. The following
case study explains why.
CASE STUDY
For the past year, I've been working hard on the natural search
results for my copywriting
business, Divine Write. For my primary
keyword, I'm now on page 1
of Google.com (out of approximately
900,000 search results). I've
done this simply by writing helpful
articles and submitting them
for publication on the Internet.
Luckily for me, I'm an SEO
copywriter, so writing articles is all in
a day's work. But had I paid
an SEO copywriter to write my
articles for me, I'd have
spent approximately USD$5,000.
Over the same period, I spent approximately USD$3,000 on
Google AdWords (my ads
appeared towards the top of the paid
listings).
Now I hear what you're saying; my natural search campaign
definitely cost more in the first
year than my AdWords campaign.
But now that I've reached
the top of Google.com, I've paused all
my AdWords ads, so I'm not
paying anything. If I hadn't chased
the natural search results,
I'd have continued paying for
AdWords, spending at
least another USD$3,000 next year on
AdWords, and another
USD$3,000 the year after that, and so on.
Of course, I have to retain my high ranking. If I was paying
someone to write my
articles, that would involve an investment
of approximately USD$1,000
per year (a saving of 67% each
year).
So it breaks down like this:
Google AdWords investment: 2 yrs = $6,000, 3 yrs = $9,000,
4 yrs = $12,000, 5 yrs =
$15,000
Natural search investment: 2 yrs = $6,000, 3 yrs = $7,000,
4 yrs = $8,000, 5 yrs =
$9,000
Conclusion
Obviously the competition for keywords in the copywriting field
isn't as fierce as in a lot
of other industries, so the actual dollar
investment discussed in this case
study may not apply directly to
your business. The important
thing to understand is that
' over time ' a high ranking in
the natural search results can
actually cost less than a
high position in the (arguably less
effective) paid listings.
Also, these figures are based on me submitting articles to various
article banks on the Internet
myself. (This is a routine task
requiring little skill. You
should be able to purchase a list of 50 or
more article submit sites
from your SEO copywriter or consultant
for as little as USD$99.)
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* Glenn Murray is an advertising copywriter and SEO copywriter
and heads copywriting studio
Divine Write. He can be contacted
on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or
at mailto:glenn@divinewrite.com.
Visit http://www.divinewrite.com for further details or more FREE
articles.
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