For Adwords Non Believers

[billbenson]

Normally I get up to 40 phone calls a day and a bunch of emails. I just noticed an email I missed from G saying my adwords weren't running. A credit card issue on an auto pay.

My site currently ranks number 1 above the manufacturer I represent in the natural SERPS for an important keyword. The keyword equates to Antiques for Ann's site, its a general broad search keyword for the products I sell. Maybe a better analogy is HP as a search term.

I thought yesterday and today were slow because of the start of the month or something similar. Today I have had 10 calls or so and a couple of emails. So essentially business is dead.

This isn't exactly a scientific survey, but it would appear that Adwords generates far more business than my number 1 place in the natural SERPS?

Adwords costs me about 20 cents a click and $600 per month. Well worth it.

[Dan Furman]

Hmmm.. you know, when I look for a product / service, I usually find myself looking to the ads first. That's the companies actually in business / etc. All too often, the top organic link is an information-laden article from 2008 or a really spammy-type site, not a "good" website selling what I am looking for.

[billbenson]

I do the opposite, Dan. I click on the natural SERPS. I don't know why. I've also seen a lot of posts where people feel natural SERPS get more clicks. It would be fun to let it ride, but I can't afford it. I'll turn it on tonight. It will also be interesting to see if I have a big jump tomorrow.

[seolman]

Interesting information - thanks for sharing.

I used to manage PPC accounts for large clients (one spent $20K+/mo in clicks) and, although they had good organic rankings for a number of quality keywords, business would be dead without PPC because the limited content on their website did not cover quite as broad a keyword spectrum as they could reach with PPC. Plus, the business model simply didn't support building a huge website with loads of pages/topics so they would never be able to rank across many industry related keywords. PPC definitely has it's place in some businesses.

[vangogh]

Bill while you look to the organic results first (I do too) there are many people who aren't even aware the top few results are ads at all. People also have a natural reflex to click the first link on the page. It's not surprising how many less calls you've been getting while you're ads aren't displaying.

You also have to consider there are other people doing exactly what Dan does. I've done that myself for certain queries. Sometimes the ads are actually the better results.

[billbenson]

Ya, I should also point out that my ads are in the main column in result 1 or 2.

[thebizinator]

Sometimes older computer monitors have trouble displaying the off-color tint surrounding the ads, especially LCD monitors with bad contrast. I personally always look at the organic listings on SERPs unless I'm looking for a very specific product. Otherwise I'm heading straight to Amazon.

[vangogh]

Good point about monitors having trouble displaying the tint. I think the masses aren't always aware which results are ads and which aren't.

[Georgias Gifts]

As someone that uses PPC sometimes, I never click on the ads at the top. But I watched a co-worker recently when she searched for something. She clicked on the first one that came up. Didn't even scroll through a few first to see what was listed. I think a lot of people do this.

Just saw a report today how the ads at the top of G have MUCH better response than the ones on the side. Mostly in clicks, but also in conversion.

[vangogh]

I think what your co-worker did is what most people do.

Our of curiosity do you avoid clicking because you don't want the business to be charged for the ad. I've done that before when doing research. I might want to look at a site and grab a screenshot for a post I'm writing and when I search the the business the ad comes up. I know I have no intention of buying anything and don't want the company to have to pay for my research so I'll copy and paste their url into my address bar. I doubt many people do that.

Interesting about the report. Do you have a link to it buy chance. It makes a lot of sense the ads at the top would get clicked more. I wouldn't have expected they'd result in a higher conversion rate though.