Website Campaign Costs

A campaign to promote your website can involve traditional advertising but the percentage of costs can be indivisible from wider aspects of promoting the business. In this article we want to consider the options for direct spend on the website, pay per click and search engine optimisation.

The campaign choice boils down to a fairly certain and instant listing alongside top search results, or the less concrete option of trying to be in those results. On the surface the former sounds attractive and campaign spend backs this up, with current figures around 7:1 in favour of pay per click. Conversely, over 80% of clicks in search are not on paid entries but on the free listings, often called organic results.

Tempting to think those responsible for web campaigns have become blind, in a sense they have but for logical reasons. Pay per click can be profitable, neither are comparisons simple but worthwhile:

Ease of Use

PPC is an out of the box solution and appears easy to implement. This factor is one of the attractions but not one that holds up to inspection. An average PC user can log into Google and have an adwords campaign running quickly but ineffectively. This type of campaign needs skill and experience, not least in cost management.

SEO on the other hand looks complex, secretive, which is not entirely the case. Success does require knowledge, particularly to ensure technical needs and the right approach are in place. Many elements beyond this do not, writing a good post on your company blog is SEO.

Campaign Tracking

PPC campaign tracking can be straightforward, keyword by keyword but that is equally a limitation. SEO however appears harder to quantify and is but often because the right factors are not studied. Too much emphasis given to ranking and traffic, rather than data which can be as granular as keyword tracking.

Tracking website campaigns is vital to understand return on investment and identify improvement but figures may be collated for another reason, justification. A belief that PPC campaigns are uniquely able to justify cost and decision making is however misleading. Data may not be as clear cut but organic optimisation can be closely monitored. Neither does this need to cost beyond time, Google analytics is free and capable.

Short v Long Term

The point on justifying decisions can be heightened by the need for immediate justification. Understandable for short term projects, often a good use for PPC, or if a business is in a difficult situation but not in the long term. If you always look to the short term, the long term will never come to fruition.

PPC is largely a spend and go medium, whereas investing in organic search is an investment in your business. The only caveat is that organic success is not maintained by standing still, websites need to be efficient and updated with fresh content. The same would however apply in either case, PPC is only a delivery service, you still need a good website.

The Certainty Principle

In one sense, this is PPC's strongest point. As long as the bills are met and your site reasonably legitimate, you are going to be visible. The downside is that bills can get out of hand and providing they are generating profit seem hard to curtail. At times with very tight margins, even without a real profit.

The element of certainty is still a factor, measured against the uncertainty of organic search. Nobody can guarantee placement in organic results and you shouldn't deal with them if they do. Even so, many sites who try to fulfil reasonable goals are likely to achieve them. This requires patience, application of new skills and hard work but successful businesses need those anyway.

A Campaign for Your Business

Each business is unique and requirements need to be assessed individually. Pay per click should not be ruled out as a campaign option for website marketing. Often viable for short term products, launches, minor niches beyond core business which don't warrant competing in search, even testing a market. In the long term, defined effort to promote their website makes sense for most businesses.

An organic approach is not as easy as PPC, even skillfully run that is less demanding. Competing in search requires the mindset to do so, good management and implementation. This does however invest in your business rather than a search engine's coffers and can reduce marketing costs significantly.

There are further benefits, whilst PPC claims a higher conversion rate, this largely arises from accurate targeting which can be achieved organically. The improvement to your website needed to succeed organically will also help with conversion and leave a lasting impression on visitors.

The benefit visitors find in a good website should not be underestimated, they need to be taken into account alongside and often before search engines. If we can help ensure you receive the right support to assist with both, try our website reports summary, or contact us at any time.