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Written by Alex Hughart March 27, 2006
Can anyone shed some light on how to deal with PPC once a high ranking has been achieved?
Our high ranking search terms (top 5 on Google, MSN, Yahoo) are also the ones that have the highest click-through and conversion rates in PPC campaigns. I am reluctant to turn them off in PPC because a lot of people don't even go pass top sponsored searches but, I have a feeling that I'm competing with myself and paying for it.
We get about a third of our orders from PPC, a third from organic search, forum posts and a third from repeat customers' bookmarks. I know that every business is different but, I'm always amazed when I hear of businesses relying solely on organic search and seemingly making bank.
Note: my high converting search terms do much better than competition's (at least that's what Google and Yahoo are telling me in their reports). This and a relatively high percentage of repeat customers (is it high? am I wrong?) leads me to believe that we are a decently converting site.
What are your experiences? Thanks to everybody in advance.
Alex Hughart
bonsavon.com
Written by Kathryn Martyn Smith
April 4, 2006 "... I have a feeling that I'm competing with myself and paying for it."
It depends whether you consider the value of the "other" sites
displaying those ads, outside Google search. You already rank high in
Google, so there's no need to pay for ads on that page. I don't think
it's true that people don't see beyond the sponsored links at the top
of the page. Most people I know don't even "see" them since they are
sponsered. It's the text that gets into Google that's important.
Using Google I find your site No. 6 for the phrase, "french soap"
with the text reading: Over 500 bath soaps from around the world:
French soap, scented soap, natural soap. Gift boxes, travel size soap,
free samples. On that same page, your PPC ad says, "French Soap at Bon
Savon A wide selection of French soaps. 600 luxury bars from 15
countries." Not much difference so which would people click? The thing
is, the list on the right costs you money, while the list on the left
does not, and people will often click the links on the right because
the text is more compelling.
You could always drop a search term for a few weeks then measure the difference. That's the only way you'll know for sure. Personally, if I already rank high, I wouldn't pay for those
keywords or phrases. I list 44 at Google for the phrase "weight loss
program" which currently has over 73 million competing sites and No. 1
(usually) for the phrase "eft weight loss" so there's just no point
paying for those terms, IMO. At the same time another site using the
same phrasing (eft weight loss) was listed in the top 10 yet also had a
PPC ad, and I often wondered what was the point? Since she continued
the practice for a long time, I had to assume it was making economic
sense so the proof is in those stats.
Kathryn Martyn Smith, M.NLP
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