One of the reasons I love this topic is that I have managed Google ad campaigns that often ran in the tens of thousands of dollars per month. I was rather good at it and knew what I was doing, having learned at the feet of a Google AdWords master. However, I admit that it's been a couple of years since I was that deep into AdWords (though I still maintain and use an AdWords account), so I spent a lot of time to make sure that the basic fundamentals of AdWords and organic searches are still the same. Based on my research, they are as I will fully document in this post with primary sources.
Why Is This Important?
It is the dream of most businesses who engage in PPC campaigns to have great placement in the first SERP because those links can drive so much traffic to websites. When someone types in a keyword in Google, most people will only look at the first page of results (unless they are finding a lot of relevant links) before they refine their search. Being on that first page can help you increase your profits substantially.
The SERPs contains two types of results: Organic (free) and Sponsored (AdWords-paid). Here is a screen shot that illustrates the two:
The organic results show up in the left column and almost always draw more clicks than the paid results shown at the right. Why? Most people know that the results to the right are ads placed by businesses paying to have their ad there. The organic results are not paid for by advertisers and thus are often viewed as being less biased than the ads.
Sometimes Google will place one, two or up to three ads above the organic results and then continue with the fourth ad at the top of the right column as in this illustration:
I have actually run AdWords accounts where sometimes my results showed up on the right and other times they showed up on the left, above the organic results. There is actually a debate going on as to the commercial value of the ads above the organic results. Some think that even though they draw more clicks, the clicks are overpriced and under-deliver because people click on them without knowing they are ads only to land on a sales page and immediately hit the back arrow on their browser. At least, the argument goes, when they click on the right column, they know they are clicking on an ad. This is the gist on how AdWords and organic results are displayed.
Now that we are on the same page, let's talk about some misconceptions that are out there regarding AdWords and organic search results. Some of these misconceptions are perpetuated by good, honest people who just don't understand how this works while some are perpetuated by dishonest swindlers out to scam a buck from you. More on those people at the end.
Misconceptions
(Click on the heading for my primary source)
- People who pay to have AdWords listings get preferential listings in the organic results- This is blatantly false but this idea still persists and probably will still continue long after today. If someone tries to convince you to let them open an AdWords account for them to increase your organic result placement-- run! The link in this heading will take you to a page where you can read this from Google:
"On Google, although both organic and paid results appear in response to the same user query, the results are independent of each other. The ranking of an organic search result has no bearing on the ranking of any ads, and vice versa. This makes it possible for an advertiser to perform well in the paid listings and have an ample online presence, even if their site isn't present in the top organic search results."
- Someone can guarantee you the number one placement in the organic search results- Not only is this false, this is an unethical claim to make and good SEO experts will never make a claim like this. The link on the heading in this point takes you to a great Google page where you can learn more about SEO issues and warnings. In fact, Google ends this page with a link, address and phone number to report people to the FTC who you believe are making unethical claims. Here is the relevant quote for our point:
"*No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.
Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a "special relationship" with Google, or advertise a "priority submit" to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through our Add URL page or by submitting a Sitemap and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever."
You can also read this Google forum question where someone asked if you can pay Google for the top search result (organic) and the answer was no. A Google employee chose the answer as the best to the question.
There are a lot of scams out there where people promise you the moon when it comes to getting on Google. Most are too good to be true. Jill Olkoski writes of one scam in a post entitled, I can get you on the front/first page of Google!
To be fair and balanced here, there are a lot of things you or an expert can do to help increase your organic placement results. In fact, a great SEO person his worth his or her weight in gold. Google even runs the Webmaster Central Blog and publishes an SEO Starter Guide with tips on how you can do just that! The thing to remember is that no one can guarantee you placement but they can do things to help you improve your current placement.
- If you want the best AdWords position, you need to outbid everyone else- OK, we really don't have time to get into all the things we need to know to be able to go out right now and make keyword bidding work, but suffice it to say that Google AdWords (paid) placement depends on two factors: Bid Amount and a Quality Score. The bid amount measure how much you are willing to spend while the quality score takes into consideration a number of items such as the relevance of the ad, the number of clicks the ad gets, the quality of the landing page, and much more.
If someone is willing to spend 10 times what anyone else is willing to spend to get the top ad position, it's possible that their ad has such a poor quality score that the poor score will keep the ad from even being shown at all. Similarly, it's possible for someone to get the best position and actually pay less money for the spot than the ad with the second best position. How? Because the top ad has such a high quality score that it lowers the cost to the advertiser while rewarding them with the top spot. In this very dry, but good Adwords Learning Center video on Ad Ranking, you can see an example of how this can happen. (Jump to section 4 of the video (Actual CPC) to see this example right away).
But if you really want to understand how the pricing on AdWords works, you can watch this video put out by Hal Varian, Chief Economist for Google, Introduction to the Google Ad Auction. It's one of the best and easiest explanation to understand that I have come across on this topic.
Parting Thoughts
Because so much money is involved in pay per click advertising, there is a lot of misrepresentation (innocent or more sinister) surrounding this marketing strategy. If you do your homework, PPC advertising can be a profitable part of your marketing plan. However, it can also suck the money out of your pockets faster than most other types of advertising while not delivering the results you are looking for. This means that you need to do your homework, research the claims of people who are promising you things that sound too good to be true, and make sure you understand what it is you are and are not purchasing (organic versus sponsored results).
This is a fluid and ever-changing world of internet marketing, but always remember that Google has a lot of information for you on their site. If you really want to ramp up your Google PPC campaign, then check out these sources:
Adwords Learning Center (Text and Videos)
Google Business Channel (YouTube Videos)
Perry Marshall (Mix of free and paid stuff- one of the best experts I have come across on Google AdWords Strategies- I am not an affiliate of his but I have learned a lot from him).
Tony Eldridge
6 comments:
Never did the AdWords, although I know how it works. Without any outside assistance, my organic listings always land at the top of searches, so I've never felt the need.
I remember one of those guys promising me he could make my website number one. When I informed him it was already number one, the sales pitch stopped real quick!
Great Diane! Though I believe that an AdWord campaign, done correctly, can find more opportunities, nothing in my opinion replaces getting the top organic results. For the benefit of those who may not have a top organic presence, there is a big difference at being at the top of organic searches with keywords that no one searches on and keywords with a lot of traffic. A good, honest SEO expert can help people with this working to bump up someone's exposure where the traffic really is.
Yes Google does mess with your organics when you activate a PPC scheme. And PPC can be good for building link popularity but its a trace value in terms of what it will cost you being dampened in the organic results. I'm thinking about using Google AdWords since a long time. There is really good that Google is now showing “View-through conversions” in AdWords console.
You actually bring up a good point that I debated on whether or not to include in the article. PPC may have a small effect on organic placement but as you said, it's a trace amount at best. You still don't open an AdWord account to increase organic placement and for the purpose of this post, it has such a negligible effect on organic placement (if any, in reality) that by linking the two as a viable way to increase organic placement leaves a more inaccurate message in the minds of people than stressing the fact that in reality, they have no real effect on each other. What I was trying to focus on is the misconception that Google unfairly rewards people with better organic placement if they open an AdWords account to do business with them. I have met some people who believe the organic placements are stacked because only people who spend money with Google will get the best organic placement. I hope this makes sense.
To your other point, Google has done a great job at supplying a bunch of tools to help advertisers really do a good job at managing their campaign. While Google does keep some data hidden that I would like to see, it it transparent in many other areas as well.
Thanks for the great post. Please continue writing good post like this!
Seo Experts
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