October 15, 2004

As important and necessary professional Search Engine Optimization is today, other alternatives now exist to companies wishing to complement their search engine marketing (SEM) campaigns.

Combined with a solid and well-structured, serious SEO program, SEM campaigns can be used to additionally increase visibility in the engines, as well as conducting some product-focussed marketing surveys on new services or products offered on a company's web site.

PPC definition

To begin with, just what exactly is PPC (Pay per Click) and how can it help companies to more effectively broaden their exposure to the Web? For a start, both Google and Overture offer PPC programs which can help businesses in more accurately selecting keywords and key phrases to better target a specific market segment. Another effective use of a carefully planned PPC program could be aimed at directing a specific web address (URL) or to direct visitors to that address in an effort in evaluating trends or habits in those markets.

Some are aimed in submitting customized descriptions or titles for each keyword or key phrase, in an attempt to display them as advertisements posted in the search results of Overture and Google. Some PPC campaigns can also run in parallel to others of their associated network from other search engines.

A perfect example to this is Google's Ad Words program which will return search results in a separate box to the right of its regular "native" search engine results for a predetermined cost per click. However, as can be expected, the Google Ad Words program does not guarantee any particular order of placement for any of your listings.
In practice, the exact order is computed not only by the click-through rate but of the bid price of your ad as well. In real life, the Overture program presents its first few results at the top of the list of the "native" search results on various search engines. The listings appear in a similar format as the natural results and Overture uses an open-bidding technique to actually compute the order of the listings based on how much each bidding company is willing to pay per click on each keyword or key phrase.

The top bidding company receives first position, the second highest gets the second position and so on and so forth. Key phrases and keywords acquired through Overture's program will be delivered in the various search engines that depend on the Overture results.

Some Pay per Click program management services are offered by certain SEM companies with ongoing research and analysis to help identify the right keywords on a corporate web site that are already generating good visibility via natural search engine optimization programs.

These services are typically followed by some advice as to which keywords and key phrases to actually purchase and in which programs to make them work. The whole process then continues with the ongoing monitoring process of performance, budget and successfully updating these keyword purchases as your search engine marketing campaign evolves.

Purchasing keywords and key phrases can be done based on a variety of factors. The most important is ROI (Return on Investment).

Carefully analysing, dicing and truly measuring the exact returns from each of these single keyword investments are truly vital and are in fact one of the most important areas of the whole exercise. In such a scenario, it truly allows a business to effectively and accurately adjust and "fine-tune" keyword selection and bid pricing accordingly.

How PPC programs can make a difference

Purchasing keywords and key phrases in Overture and Google could represent a faster way for you to drive fairly targeted traffic to a web site and could be most effective in testing or promoting new products, seasonal services or other short-term needs. Additionally, it can provide short-term results, to fill a certain vacuum between real ranking results and its underlying campaign launch. But these benefits all come at a certain price, ie: a price that isn't always under one's control at any time.

Hence, conservative investment in PPC programs is a crucial and permanent ingredient to any serious search engine marketing campaign and should be viewed as a supplement only to "native" SEO. Given all these facts, and throughout your SEM campaign, as your natural visibility generated through native search engine optimization regularly increases, your dependency on keyword and key phrase purchasing should lower with the passage of time.
Always remember that search engine optimization is a science as well as an art. It is a delicate balance of the two that will help nurture the best results in the engines. Every PPC program analysis process, like native search engine optimization, is based on such things as keyword density, placement, optimization and general link structure in the whole site.
As with any other SEM program, it is crucial that a company first understands the actual surfing habits and buying styles that Internet searchers demonstrate when looking for specific services, products or information using today's modern search engines.
Such buying patterns can be detected by analysing the most recurring search terms used within the various search engines and looking at site traffic log files everyday to find trends and occurrences that can be readily recognized.

Actual keywords & key phrases used can vary widely by the geo-physical location, by specific product, by the exact stage within the buying cycle, by web site, and by other such factors as the industry and a host of other elements in the equation. As a direct result, it is important for any company to have a clear understanding of just how various types of web searchers look for solutions before attempting any investment in any PPC program.