SEO or PPC or BOTH?

Many people assume that if they are appearing in the organic results (through Search Engine Optimisation - SEO) in search engines such as Google, Yahoo or MSN that there is no need to use the respective Pay Per Click (PPC) systems such as Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing or Microsoft adCenter.

This assumption is wrong.

Recent results carried out by Google show 3 major statistics:

• AdWords: 1000 impressions will recieve on average 10 clicks in top position
• Organic: 1000 impressions will recieve on average 20 clicks in top position
• BOTH: 1000 impressions will recieve on average 60 clicks in top position

These results show that you can double your traffic by being at the top of results in both PPC and organic listings.

What must also be taken into consideration is the syndication that takes place when PPC is deployed. When opted into the search network in Google AdWords for example, your ad will be syndicated across seven other search engines including Lycos, Netscape, Alexa, Ask, Hotbot, AOL and Go. Yahoo Search Marketing have a similar system spanning Altavista, Alltheweb, Yahoo and Dogpile.

Therefore, taking this into consideration, it is important to be at the top in both the organic results (through SEO) and the sponsored results (through PPC Management) to get the most traffic to your website.

What is more important is to have a fully optimised PPC account to get the best Return On Investment (ROI). Google has the most advanced PPC system and the widest reach on the internet, therefore Optimisation is a must. Unless you are making use of all the features available to you in your PPC account, you will lose money as you will be paying top price for the top position. With a fully optimised PPC account, you can increase your quality score, resulting in a higher position with a lower Cost Per Click (CPC). Our PPC techniques page shows all of the functions in Google AdWords that you should be using to get the best ROI. If you are not using these functions, then contact us for a quote on PPC Management to maximise you Return On Investment.

Choosing the Right SEO Company

Yesterday, a popular Search Engine Optimisation company in Australia was penalised in Google for spamming their index by using Black-Hat SEO techniques to artificially boost their rankings. The major technique they used was a link-building technique that linked their websites to other irrelevant websites. When doing a search for the sites that link to them in Google (please copy and paste the link into your browser to see the example - we have purposely avoided linking to these sites so that Google will not relate our sites with those listed):

• http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rls=GGLJ%2CGGLJ%3A2006-47%2CGGLJ%3Aen&q=link%3Awww.foundagency.com.au&btnG=Search

...It can be seen that there are many irrelevant sites. Take one for example, HIT RADIO. On this site you can find their links page:

• http://pub44.bravenet.com/freelink/show.php?usernum=3743912404&cpv=1

...which links to a load of irrelevant sites. These sites and their link pages are often referred to as Link Farms and are something that you want to avoid at all costs.

It is extremely important to choose the right Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) company and more importantly one that uses 'white-hat' SEO techniques.

White-Hat SEO techniques are those techniques encouraged by Google. These are ways to optimise your website without spamming search engines. See our list of White-Hat SEO techniques used at Compelite.

Black-Hat SEO techniques are used to artificially boost ranking by using spamming techniques.

The company mentioned above risks their website being banned in search engines and also all of their client sites risk being banned as they, no doubt, will be inadvertently using the same techniques to increase their rankings. This is why it is extremely important to find an SEO company that is open and honest with you about the techniques that they use.

You will find all the techniques or factors that Compelite look into when performing an SEO campaign on our Search Engine Optimisation Techniques page. We also list all the techniques used when managing your Pay Per Click campaign on our Google AdWords Techniques page. When choosing a company to Manage your AdWords Account you should also make sure that they are qualified as a Google Advertising Professional. This will ensure that they can offer you the best management and Return on Investment (ROI).

Any SEO company that is extremely secretive of the SEO techniques that they use, should be avoided or at least investigated more meticulously. Those that are open and thorough in their explanations can be trusted and researched to a point of understanding that can be trusted.

Google has a recommendations page when selecting the right SEO Company to work with. You can find that page under their "My sites ranking in Google" section.

Search Engine Optimisation vs. Pay Per Click

Over the years we have seen varying trends between the popularity of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and the Pay Per Click (PPC) model. But where are we today?

SEO has been steadily gaining trust once again, compared to when it was highly abused in the past, due mainly to poor Search Engine Algorithms. Search Engine Algorithms have since improved tremendously and we are now seeing results that were the sole purpose of the invention of Search Engines. After all we must remember that Search was never intended to generate traffic for commercial websites. For example, “Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Note that this says nothing to the tune of providing the best free advertising medium.

We have seen a consistent trend recently of an increase in Blogs and generally useful information (take for example, wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit). Commercial websites appear to be dropping lower and lower in the search engine rankings. This tells us what the future may hold. I suspect that we will see a total shift where commercial websites will no longer be a candidate for SEO. Rather PPC will be the advertising medium of choice, providing the most valuable positions in search engine rankings for commercial websites.

This begs the question, where does that leave the small contenders who cannot afford either an SEO campaign (which most likely will not be applicable compared to the competition) or a PPC Advertising Campaign? Well this is a question that will need to be answered by the top search engines, as we move in this direction day by day. Perhaps these less fortunate companies are better off by relying less on search engine results and more on their own marketing campaigns such as eNewsletters that are sent directly to their own registered users. WhosOn could be another option in monitoring the performance of marketing campaigns and the like. WhosOn is a tool which will show you who is using your web sites in real time, as well as give you and your visitors the ability to chat to each other. This tool will also give you all of the statistics that are available to you through Google AdWords' own monitoring program, Google Analytics. Try Whoson now with a Free 1 Month Trial!

Meanwhile Google AdWords is paving the path as the most sophisticated PPC model on the market. Google is one of the only companies that has invested nearly nothing in promoting its ad program, rather spending their time and money on technological innovation. This is one major reason why they are way ahead of the rest in the same arena, and why advertisers put so much more trust into Google AdWords – Because they have a model that promotes itself through word of mouth and results that you can trust. Google also continues to make constant minor changes to its PPC model to provide consistent advances in technology, as well as the best possible services available for its users.

With the consistent decline in the click through rate (CTR) of banner advertisements and the like, it is not difficult to see why PPC ads are so popular. Banner ad CTR’s often fall below 0.1%, and are continuing to do so. Compare this to PPC CTR’s, which can often be up to 100 times better when optimised efficiently by a Google Advertising Professional.

What I find upsetting in this area of Google’s Advanced PPC model is that advertisers believe that they are fully capable in managing their own PPC accounts. While this may be the case in some circumstances, most advertisers simply do not have the time or the expertise to fully manage a Google AdWords account in order to capitalise on performance and results.

Almost everything can be measured in a Google AdWords account, providing the advertiser with a wealth of information, compared with lesser advertising techniques where you must simply be content with lots of traffic that may or may not convert into sales. With Google AdWords you can measure conversion rates and do something about them if they are below your expectations.

With a Google Advertising Professional at the reins, they can check every item that is available to them through the AdWords platform to provide the best CTR’s, and ultimately the best Return On Investment (ROI). Successful deployment of an AdWords account involves making use of all of its features, repetitively, as new advertisers enter the market and old ones leave. The PPC market is ever changing, and so too must your account to keep up both with the changes in the number of advertisers and in the trends by prospects searching for your products and/or services throughout different times of the year. Also you will excel over your competitors who are managing their own campaigns, not knowing/using all of the features available in their Google AdWords account.

Avnet Asia

Avnet Asia have been very pleased with the services offered at Compelite. They started with Pay Per Click Management service in Google AdWords and continued on to create a corporate eCard (Avnet eCard) and also use our eMarketing System.


Avnet Electronics Marketing serves electronic original equipment manufacturers (EOEMs), electronic manufacturing services (EMS) providers, and electronic component manufacturers (ECMs) throughout North America, Brazil, Europe, Middle-East, Africa and Asia, through focused business units, distributing electronic components from leading manufacturers and providing associated services.

New Google Adwords Management Accounts

Saffron Cruises, Saffron Marina, Avnet and Vakaadoo have chosen Compelite to create and manage their Pay Per Click account in Google AdWords.

Compelite's Search Engine Marketing Manager is qualified as a Google Advertising Professional and will create and manage your Google AdWords account using Compelite's Pay Per Click Management Techniques to get the best Return On Investment (ROI).

Google AdWords Pay Per Click Management

Compelite have had much interest in Pay Per Click Management over the past 3 months, particularly with Google Adwords. Due to this increased amount of interest, we have expanded on our Search Engine Optimisation services to include Google AdWords Pay Per Click Management. See our Search Engine Marketing page for more information.

We have also updated our website to include the techniques that we carry out to ensure top Search Engine Optimisation and Pay Per Click Management account performance.

Michael, our Search Engine Marketing Manager has also recently passed his Google Advertising Professional Exam, which makes him fully qualified to manage your Google AdWords Account to ensure maximum Return On Investment (ROI).

At the present time we are only managing Google AdWords Accounts, as we believe that Google AdWords is much more Advanced when it comes to Pay Per Click systems. Also, they cover 80% visibility on the internet.

Yahoo are currently in the process of upgrading their Pay Per Click systems, to better match Google's AdWords system by introducing their own "Ad Quality". Yahoo's "Ad Quality" will be similar to Google's "Quality Score". When this is introduced on February 18th, we will re-evaluate the quality of Yahoo's Pay Per Click system to see if it matches the quality of Google's system. Yahoo certainly seem to be improving their system dramatically, and so they should, as they are surely losing much revenue to Google AdWords.