Would You Run PPC for the Keyword SEO?
This is a question that has been eating at me for over a week now. Do SEO companies that offer SEO services via PPC sponsored results nothing more than hypocrites to their profession? The reason why I am even asking the question is that I see more SEO companies use this route. It was once the view that running sponsored ads against an organic service was considered laughable but is that the case now – have perceptions changed? In fact have the lines between organic SEO and Internet Marketing become so blurred that is hard to determine where one starts and the other ends.
First lets see what a sample of other SEO’s think about organic SEO companies who use PPC to advertise their services :
Shaun over at Hobo is quite strong on this position and makes the proud claim that in the 2 years the company has been running they have never spent a single penny on advertising but prefer to get over half of their leads from organic ranking positions.
Cornish Web Services also state that “unsuccessful SEO companies are characterised” by the use of, “PPC advertising to advertise their SEO services ” and also boast “We have never needed to use paid advertising or email marketing to attract new work.”
Upon my research for this topic I once again came across the excellent resource called SEO Ninjas. The guys over there have also chewed over this topic and the came under the impression that the whole PPC for SEO sake was irrelevant.
Lets try another approach here to get to the bottom of this.
Am I right in stating that companies who approach this way of search engine visibility fall under the following categories :
- Don’t have the time to perform “Optimisation” on their own site because they are too busy optimising their clients
- See it as a quick and easy way to jump ahead of the queue and purchase leads straight away
- Don’t have the skills necessary to get a top 20 organic position for “SEO” related keyterms when competing against other SEO companies
I’m sure there are other reasons but these ones are at the top of my list.
Would I run PPC for SEO related terms – No! But I have run it for terms like ‘e-commerce and web design‘. Why? Well I understand marketing and I know when there are times it just makes sense to get in front of a lot of traffic very quickly to promote your services.
To end this post let it be known I’m not in any way chastising companies who use PPC for SEO keyterms because I think it may be something soon enough that a lot of SEO’s will have in their toolbox.
But I’m interested in others POV on this! Do they feel it is acceptable? Would they ever consider going down this route? Or do they feel it is just lazy and hypocritical SEO practices?
Lynne Foster said,
Wrote on April 6, 2008 @ 10:44 am
By running a PPC campaign is an SEO company not giving out the message to potential clients that they will also have to run a PPC campaign in order to get results? If I was looking I think I would explicity ignore any company resorting to that. Mind you, it’s probably good for getting clients that know nothing about how SEO works but know enough to think they should get it!
Hope that ramble makes sense
Tim Nash said,
Wrote on April 6, 2008 @ 4:36 pm
I always consider PPC to be like a pain killer, you use it to take away the pain of lack of visitors from other means. But just like pain killers they have side effects PPC masks other problems and of course its addictive you don’t pay you don’t get the visits. Bidding on the keyword SEO might make financial sense, in that you can use all those SEO blogs with adsense or other CPC to promote your own services but I would like to meet people who do bid on it to share their conversion rate and if it actually provides a reasonable ROI.
Paul said,
Wrote on April 6, 2008 @ 6:11 pm
Thanks for the comments Lynne & Tim.
I just saw another PPC advert for SEO that promises :
“Guaranteed Page 1 Rankings $49.95
See Your Site on Page 1 in 7 Days”
No wonder businesses get confused over SEO services when they are being served PPC masked as SEO!
Hobo said,
Wrote on April 7, 2008 @ 10:44 am
I always find it ironic when I see outrageous claims in PPC ads for SEO Services.
It suits my purposes not to use PPC, but PPC and SEO are just parts of a marketing mix though, and PPC can be a useful sandbox for keyword testing for seo in the beginning of a campaign, I hear.
Ben said,
Wrote on April 7, 2008 @ 12:51 pm
Perhaps it could just be seen as another method to bring in visitors, regardless of the fact it’s being paid for.
If a client is using a SEO service, there is a good chance they don’t understand the process nor methods behind it, and simply want more traffic or to be seen in “that yellow bit at the top”, as was asked of me recently.
However, should the end-result count more than the methods?
Paul said,
Wrote on April 7, 2008 @ 2:16 pm
@ Shaun — I agree it is a useful tool for judging the metrics of traffic - costly but useful.
@Ben — Cheers for the visit
It was the case once when SEO = Rankings
Now its SEO = Rankings+Traffic+Conversions
A modern SEO is now just as much a marketer as he is an optimiser. But are the basic skills of optimising your site organically for the keyword ‘SEO’ being passed over for the PPC method?
Dolphin said,
Wrote on April 8, 2008 @ 2:05 pm
I cant say it is anything we have done. I don’t personally feel it would be that beneficial to us. I would prefer to spend the time and money in developing our site more organically.
I think there is a bit of a mixed bag when it comes down to people bidding on SEO. There are clearly some companies that are smaller or newer trying to get some SEO clients from it, some of which look shit to put it bluntly “Guaranteed Page 1 Rankings $49.95″ is just ridiculous. On the other hand there are other companies with good organic listings who seem to be doing it to compliment their rankings. Neutralize, 360 and Latitude all have decent rankings and use PPC as well.
I think if we did go down the PPC route I would be more inclined to go for more specific terms like the local towns and areas around us that we don’t already rank for.