Search Engine Marketing or Pay Per Click

Posted on December 6, 2006 in Affiliate Tips  

The question isn’t to be or not to be in the world of internet marketing it is Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or Pay Per Click (PPC)? This is a very important question that needs to be answered. The tough part is there is no easy answer.

I was inspired to write about SEM and PPC after reading a free E-book titled, Search Engine Marketing: Get in the Game (Click here to get your free copy instantly). First let me warn that I do not back or endorse the E-book, I just found it as an interesting read. It discusses why SEM is so important over PPC. The free E-book had some good points and is a great read for someone just getting into the internet marketing game but the information I found interesting was the PPC vs SEM click statistics.

Let me preface that the information was gathered in 2004 and as any of us in the business know the internet statistics change daily! But the information that was provided stated that on Google and Yahoo people were more likely to click the organic search than the PPC search, but on MSN they were more likely to click on the PPC ad over the organic search. Lastly for AOL it was 50/50 split.

Why is this information important? Honestly it’s not the information that is important but the concept behind it, as the data is really too old to base it on the statistics of today. But it shows that PPC and SEM both have their own benefits. From my point of view both take time and money, but there are two slight differences.

PPC marketing has almost instant results on search engines. This can lead to instant visitors, customers and revenue for your site, but it does come at a cost. As a PPC marketer you must make sure you are not over paying for a visitor as you can go into debt big time if you bid to high for a highly searched term and you don’t get enough return for your investment. Trial and Error and starting off slow with your PPC campaign help alleviate this.

SEM marketing in most cases does not yield instant results. But once your hard work is done to get your listing near the top, there isn’t as much expense as running a consistent PPC campaign. The bad news is that Google, Yahoo, AOL, or Msn could change there algorithm overnight you could go from number 1 to 50 or even worse not be listed. While it is not likely to lose that much placement it can and does happen.

Having said all that, the best plan of attack is both! Why not have a quick solution and a more long term less costly solution for your website. Many people only attack PPC or SEM while I feel most webmasters should be trying to capitalize traffic from both!
If you have any suggestions or feedback feel free to leave us a comment.



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