With the creation of the Overture and Google Adwords systems, many webmasters believed they had finally hit the mother lode. It was no longer necessary for small online businesses to invest large amounts of money into Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services to gain high search rankings in the natural search results.
Even webmasters committed to SEO campaigns began to realize its fleeting nature. Given frequent search engine algorithm changes, optimizing a website was no guarantee that in 6 months or less it wouldn’t be back to square one and page twenty of the search results.
PAY-PER-CLICK SEARCH ENGINE (PPCSE) PLACEMENT
With the advent of the PPCSE model created by Overture, and followed by Google Adwords, webmasters felt like they had finally found the level playing field that everyone talks about. Hiring a SEO company was no longer necessary to crack the top search engine results. A Page One placement could be purchased and often for far less than the cost of a SEO company’s services.
Webmasters discovered that they could get traffic to their website for as little as one cent per click.
Pay-per-click, however, has evolved over the last 5 years and not to the benefit of most webmasters. Although five cents is currently the average starting bid price at most major search engines, many sought after keyword terms can cost as much as $30 – $50 per click. Given the increasingly competitive nature of PPC advertising and spiraling costs, many small- to medium- sized businesses today might be better served hiring a good SEO company to search optimize their websites.
WHO IS CLICKING YOUR PAY-PER-CLICK LINKS?
There are four types of people who click on pay-per-click ads. Knowing who these people are helps explain why experts keep telling us that 20% to 25% of all clicks on PPC listings are “fraudulent clicks”.
Personality Type #1: True-Blue Prospects
These are the people for whom you have placed your pay-per-click ads. They see your advertisement; they like what they see; and they click your link to see if you can actually serve their needs.
Personality Type #2: Accidental Clickers
Every once in a while, even my finger misfires, and I click an advertisement that I did not intend on clicking. My first thought is usually, “Oh no…”, and my first action is to find the back button.
I didn’t mean to cost that person money by clicking his advertisement… but I did. It was an accident. Now, the advertiser has to pay for my mistake. That bites.
Personality Type #3: Jealous Competitors
I would like to think that all of my, and your, competitors are fine, upstanding people. And most of them are. But, there are some who are not, and they click on pay-per-click links just to be spiteful or just to cost their business rivals a few dollars.
Believe it or not, a good percentage of “fraudulent clicks” are believed to be clicks perpetrated by people against their competitors.
Personality Type #4: True-Blue Fraudsters
Not that long ago pay-per-click providers realized that there was tremendous opportunity in offering small website owners a method for cashing in on their limited traffic.
Today, a webmaster can go to any number of pay-per-click services, add a small piece of code to a webpage and start serving paid advertising the same day. Webmasters thus become revenue share partners with the PPC provider, splitting revenues with the PPC provider for each click.
Ethical webmasters, of course, put the needs of their advertisers first and focus on putting eyeballs on their website so that visitors can click on the advertising links.
But, the word “ethical” doesn’t exist in the vocabulary of some webmasters. These are the “true-blue fraudsters” who believe in making “revenue at any cost… no matter who might be hurt by their actions.” They devise schemes to have their own ads clicked in order to drive up their revenue share.
These webmasters, although a minority, are responsible for the vast majority of fraudulent clicks. And, they are the same people that should be taken out behind the barn, for a good old-fashioned flogging — one lashing for each stolen dollar would be fine with me.
THE UNSEEN COSTS OF THE PAY-PER-CLICK SEARCH GAME
If the experts are correct in estimating that 25% of all clicks are fraudulent, then you are paying out 33% more than you should have to pay to get your business.
If you are converting PPCSE clicks-to-sales at a rate of $20 per transaction, then you should be aware that your actual conversion rate for non-PPCSE advertising would cost you an average of $15 per transaction. By escaping the pay-per-click search engine model, you could in effect make an additional $5 per transaction by cutting the fraud out of your marketing budget.
Personally, I would rather not pay the pay-per-click mafia the $5 a transaction that they are exacting against pay-per-click advertisers.
WHERE MY ADVERTISING MONEY WORKS BEST
I have always gained the best bang for my buck with pay-for-placement advertising. In a nutshell, I pay a monthly, quarterly or yearly fee to have my advertising seen on various websites. Banner advertising is always an option, but text links provide better click-through rates (CTR’s).
At any one time, you can find links to my websites on dozens of other websites.
Here are a few examples of pay-for-placement, often referred to as “paid inclusion”, advertising networks:
ISEDN.org Network:
( http://www.exactseek.com/featured_listings.html) for specific keyword phrases which are then shown through the ISEDN’s 200 plus member websites. Their network claims to show paid inclusion ads 150 million times per month.
Pricing starts at $4 per month per keyword phrase and goes down according to the number of keyword phrases purchased. Quarterly and yearly rates for one keyword phrase are $12 and $36, respectively.
AdBrite Advertising provides access to a large network of independent publishers who are willing to let you advertise on their websites: http://www.bravenetmedianetwork.com/ ), their network serves over 500 million page views per month.
WHO LEFT THE BARN DOOR OPEN?
We put locks and deadbolts on our doors. In some localities, we put bars on our windows. We keep our valuables in safes. We keep our cars locked when we are not in them. We are a nation obsessed with protecting our valuables.
And yet, when we advertise our online businesses, we seem to be willing to let PPCSE providers steal 25% of our advertising budget? It boggles the mind.
Personally, I am done with PPCSE companies until they can assure me that my advertising dollars are protected from click fraud.
I have always relied on my own search engine optimization skills to strengthen my natural search results. And frankly, I am pretty good at it.
And, to supplement my own SEO efforts and organic search result placement successes, or lack thereof, paid inclusion currently offers me the best value for my money.
Author’s Note: Also published here.
…
If you want to learn how to make article marketing effective and profitable for the promotion of your online business, you will be able to locate several article marketing training guides at http://WritingPuzzle.com/ If you are looking for an article syndication service company to help you promote your online articles, explore http://thephantomwriters.com/ which has been providing article marketing services since 2001. Bill Platt is the owner of both of these web properties.
Read more articles written by Bill Platt
Related posts:
- SEO Vs Pay Per Click Advertising
In the world of modern business, the key to success is getting your product seen and understood by your target audience. Simple numbers don’t always accomplish the goal – it doesn’t matter how many millions of vegetarians see your commercial for Grade-A double-plus chuck steak, after all. The key is... - Curious Employee Foils Corporate Credit Card Fraud Scam
MOLLY, THE ASSISTANT, Molly treasurer at XYZ Corp. in Miami, opened an e-mail from a former colleague who no longer worked for the organization. The e-mail read: “Hi Molly, there should be a refund of $716 on my old corporate Visa card from the IP Conference. I paid for, but... - Natural Cancer Treatments – Top 10 Cancer Alternatives That Work: Overview
Step 1: Healing Power What does it take to heal your body when cancer it growing inside of you? The best chance you have, of course, is to nourish your body to build defenses against a turn-coat invader. Your success, regardless of treatment choice, depends on your own healing power.... - How Much Is Too Much To Pay For SEO?
How much is too much to pay for SEO? (…or should you try to do it yourself first?) Yes, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be an excellent way of getting leads. Yes, good SEO can level the playing field between you and competitors. Yes, you should do some level of... - How to Get Great Traffic to Your Website
In Internet marketing, there are essentially 2 major ways of building traffic on a website. There are the free methods which consume time and energy and offer a continuous stream of visitors with little or no upkeep, and there are paid methods such as cost per action and cost per... - A Comparison of Paid Search Advertising Models
As webmasters, we are all chasing customers. We are looking for human visitors to come to our websites and to buy what we are selling. To serve our needs for targeted traffic — potential customers — the search companies have begun to offer us a share of their significant traffic... - Are You Paying Too Much For Traffic? Increase Clicks 40-Fold With This PPC Strategy
In any business, if you can reduce your effective advertising expenses, you will increase your profits. Many business owners will opt to push the additional savings into more advertising, and if you are utilizing the information described in this article, you could feasibly increase your paid traffic by 40-times, with... - 10 Steps To Top 10 Rankings In Google
Most webmasters go totally “gaga” for top 10 rankings in Google. And for good reason, Google is the most dominant search engine on the net and will deliver the largest amount of traffic. Even those webmasters who are fortunate enough to get No. 1 rankings for their keywords in all... - Linking Campaigns: Consistency Is The Key To Success
Many webmasters understand the importance of creating back links to their site. They understand that creating back links is one of the most important things they can do to increase the search engine results placement (SERPs) for their website. However, what most webmasters fail to understand is that they need... - The Best Online Marketing Strategy
Tips for Starting a New Online Business One of the biggest mistakes that many businesses online and offline make is that they do not have a plan for success. Even though it is an online business, you should still have a business plan and you should have a search marketing... - What Are Meta Tags and Why Do I Need Them?
There is no other way to put it; the World Wide Web is big business. As an example, you only have to look at the phenomenal success of the online bookstore, Amazon. In 2008, Amazon brought in over nineteen billion dollars in income, yet only required an operating budget of... - Understanding The Challenges Of The Link Building Game
Many webmasters who have been following the discussions about Google’s dislike of paid links have been confused about what constitutes bad links and good links, in the eyes of the search engine companies. In this article, I will seek to answer many of the questions people have on this topic.... - Strengthen Your Advertising with SEO Copywriting
Advertising should be part of any growing business. Regardless of what your business does, customers have to know about your product or service in order for them to use it. As the Internet becomes a primary source for consumer knowledge and increasingly, purchasing, it’s imperative that your company gets its... - Successful Article Marketers Help Readers Solve Problems
Every week, I have the opportunity to speak with people about the benefits and challenges of using article marketing to promote an online business. Of course, article marketing is about getting your sales message in front of potential customers and to get links to your website, from the page where... - My Opinion on Google Adwords
Over the past 5 or 6 years I have made some pretty good cash-flow out of google adwords. For those of you who aren’t aware, here’s how it works. You place links on google adwords. People click on those links. Those visitors come to your web site. You convert them...