pay per click

Traditionally , the mind-set of the 2 separate approaches of Pay per click & S.E.O have not necessarily been exactly the same. For instance, when targeting high volume ( frequently universal ) search phrases PPC marketing experts would approach with caution instantly thinking about return. What are the average CPCs of the keywords, margins or KPIs of the client? Does the site have a strong or wide enough variety of products or services to achieve an adequate conversion rate to gain a satisfactory level of return on the spend? How has it performed in the past? What are the average conversion rates? For example.

From an S.E.O viewpoint there would be some caution, but some of the more instant thoughts were always Is achieving first page rankings achievable? Where are they ranking now? What's their present link profile like? How many days work every month will it need for link building to achieve this? So maybe already far less concentration on real KPIs. The price tag is rather detached, so maybe liability aswell. But times have moved on. What I like about PPC is it's transparency and successive responsibility it holds. With a high level of precision you can see precisely what you are spending, where it has been spent and the successive effect on conversion and eventually return. Clients expect to see a positive return. They can see precisely what's working, what's wasting them money and how much they're getting in turn. What struck me instantly when I started in S.E.O years back was the difference in expectancies and responsibility.

Agencies did not provide far more than ranking reports as a measure of performance. Clients did not always expect much more either. This is reasonably an extraordinary thing from a Pay-per-click point of view. Imagine running a campaign without tracking or delivering a keyword report with just cost and rank. While not totally the same, is it that different? With no regard for the search selling discipline ( Pay per click / S.E.O ), clients are paying cash to gain concluded business targets, which should really be based primarily on discernible business KPIs.

Skyrocketing visibility ( rank ) is the core method to reach these objectives, but isn't the end target. So it shouldn't be the final judge of performance either. In the past I've seen serious rankings and successive high visitor volume but very low conversion accomplished by S.E.O judged as a success and therefore the low conversion was a failure of the site / business instead of the campaign. Something that would just never wash in the world of PPC.

Glaringly sites are in part responsible and search marketing pros can't all be conversion rate mavens, but the first method and implementation for targeting is totally down to the supplier.

There's less control in S.E.O , but the accountability for targeting and reaching ROI should be the same.