SEO or PPC--Where Should Your Marketing $ Really go?
I typically scan 300 or so marketing blogs on a daily basis to see what's what in the direct marketing and emarketing Industries. I recently posted an article "Why Search Engine Marketing is Essential for Your Website" and received some interesting feedback. The gist of the feedback was this.
- As a start-up site we need to drive traffic to our site immediately. SEO takes time. "How much of my budget should I spend on each?"
While scanning yesterday, I came across the following post by "Randfish" on the SEOmoz.org blog. He is SEOmoz's CEO, and co-founder, as well as the primary blogger for the site . His post on "The Disconnect in PPC vs. SEO Spending" is well worth reading to get some insight on how dollars are actually spent (about 85% on PPC) versus where research of user eye tracking behavior map users actually look (predominantly at the top of the organic, or natural listings). When you read the post, make sure to also read the comments from SEO experts at the bottom of the article.
My personal experience with this falls along similar lines as Randfish's post...at least initially. I used PPC to drive traffic from keywords that I believed made the most sense--based on Keyword research analysis of competitor sites. I spent thousands of dollars driving heards of traffic to my site and learned a lot about what word could and would pay off. But it was a bloody experience financially.
Today my PPC expenditures are about 5% of my overall search marketing strategy. Search Engine Optimization is where I spend the majority of my non-selling and servicing clients time. After all, I'm the DCSListGuy, so I see direct mailing lists and email marketing lists in my sleep.