SEO or Pay per click?

You'll hear arguments on both sides. Usually depends on whether the person is selling a pay per click or seo product.
But now there really is hard data, based on 18.7 million visits.
Which do you think proved more effective?

The winner is.... pay-per-click!

For more details, check out:
Marketing and Copywriting Blog » Blog Archive » What’s better – SEO or Pay Per Click?

You are asking the WRONG question. What you need to do is ask can you get a postive ROI from both of them.

I can't do PPC for the term"garage plans" in Google and make any money. Why because most of my ad comp. are very large companys with very deep pockets who don't allways care about profit. They use a shotgun view of PPC and Bid on anything that moves with out looking at ROI for keywords. They look at ROI as a whole.

But I'm number 7 on the front page of Google for garage plans. So in my case SEO is better.

But I also have PPC campains running that make me $3 for every $1 in cost. In that case PPC is better.

Thanks
Charles Kirkland

P.S. I also sell a SEO product and I'm Google Adwords Certified and I can tell you it depends on a lot of factors

I suggest you READ the post a little more carefully. It talked about a head to head comparison of 18.7 million visitors. Solid data for someone to base a decision about allocation of time and resources. Of course, in some cases SEO will do better and in other cases ppc will do better.

It's data that is helpful to consider when you don't have previous ROI campaign info.

For more details, check out:
Marketing and Copywriting Blog » Blog Archive » What’s better – SEO or Pay Per Click?

Really? I think someone would be very foolish to base a decision on this data without a LOT more information:
* What kinds of web sites were these? Single sales pages, huge online stores, professional firms with some sales pages or what? Bto B, Bto C or both?
* What was the average amount spent in this study?
* What was the ROI after the cost of PPC ads was deducted?

Is there more information available about this research? If so, where?

If you do have additional information, thanks in advance for providing it.

Marcia Yudkin

Study included ecommerce sites with a mix of B2B and B2C

Some of the metrics evaluated
• Average order value
• Bounce rate
• Conversion rate
• Value per visitor (sales divided by visit)
• Average time spent on site
• Average number of page views per visit
• Average length of time spent on each page viewed

Average Order Value from paid traffic was $138.04, while AOV for SEO was $117.09.

A visitor from a paid traffic source was worth 41% more than a visitor from an organic listing.

Additionally, paid traffic converted at a 20% higher rate
Study showed that paid traffic returned a more valuable visitor than that from organic listings.


Obviously, needs of individual sites vary, and a variety of factors need to be brought to bear for budget allocation decisions.

This additional information is really, really significant. Someone who doesn't have an ecommerce site should ignore the way you supposedly settled this question once and for all because the search dynamics for non-ecommerce sites are significantly different.

Lots of us sell items that people never specifically "shop" for but rather buy in the course of looking for information on a problem. For that kind of buying dynamic, the question of SEO vs. pay per click remains an open question.

Thank you for the additional info.

Marcia Yudkin

“settled this question once and for all.”

You’re extrapolating intentions far beyond what my post suggests.
Research and findings about Internet marketing have a short shelf life, so why would I suggest that a marketing issue is settled once and for all?

Yes, information sites differ from ecommerce sites. And one information site is different from another. But thorough research that tells us something about web behavior can be very useful. If there is evidence based on a huge amount of visitors that people who come from paid search are more willing to buy, buy more, and stay on the page longer, I would find that useful in trying to assess my marketing plans, or at least in how I go about testing. If you have other data that contradicts these findings or is useful, then why not share it?

Copyeagle

You are so funny.

I know that nothing Marcia or I will say is going to help you at this point.

But you are like 99.9% of the people online who just follow something because somebody said it.

If you ask any Good copywriter on this board they will tell you to test you copy, right?

Why should this be any different.

Maybe you should do some testing yourself before you just read somthing and turn it in the total truth.

Maybe you should do some work and see which one works for you. That would be a great case study you could share with the board here.

Thanks
Charles

"....the people online who just follow something because somebody said it."

Not exactly. This was a two year study tracking 18.7 million visits.

SEO is a long term strategy, it takes months to rank well consistently. PPC is instant, but of course it's only viable while sales cover advertising costs.