Paid Search to Overtake Organic?

The organic and paid search dynamic has changed dramatically in recent years. With these changes, many people within the search industry have continued to maintain their strong position in choosing one over the other.

As Andrew Goodman of Page Zero Media tells WebProNews, those on the organic side argue that 80 percent of clicks come from organic. Those on the paid side, contend that more business revenue comes from paid as opposed to organic. For example, Microsoft conducted a study in which it found that 60 percent of revenue across thousands of sites was driven by paid and 40 percent of the revenue was driven by organic. However, Goodman says all these reports are misleading.

He does point out that specific verticals indicate a trend in favor of paid over organic. For instance, if you do a search for “San Diego tours,” the top 3 results are paid, there are paid listings on the right side, and there are also local results that could have a paid element. In addition, these practically take up all the room above the fold.

As a result, Goodman says, “To not do paid just basically means your competitors are there and you’re not.”

He went on to say how he believes that organic will begin to lose its meaning over time. Taking it even further, he says it’s getting difficult to clearly define the “10 blue links” as either paid or organic, since results include news, YouTube, and more.

Because the search environment is being flooded with personalization, localization, and other new factors, Goodman says people need to realize that the “fixed 10 blue links” do not exist anymore. That said, he thinks paid search is more reliable moving forward.

As the search dynamic continues to evolve, what do you see happening to paid and organic search?

Tips for Attracting and Converting Traffic

Advertisers and digital agencies have to be effective in how they approach search engine optimization. With so many tools for organic search, paid search, and landing page optimization, it is hard to know what to use.

As Matt Malden explains to WebProNews, Yield Software has taken a holistic approach to these areas. The company understands that advertisers cannot only focus on one area and neglect the others. As a result, Yield Software offers a cloud-based solution that includes organic search optimization, PPC optimization, and landing page optimization.

Malden also points out that Yield helps its users understand the importance of utilizing both paid and organic search. Often times, users do one and not the other. Malden said when users choose one area over another, it actually drives up their costs-per-acquisition.

In addition, sometimes users are so focused on getting the traffic to their site that they overlook conversions. However, they need to realize that all the areas are equally important in producing the best results.

Since the technology is cloud-based, it can be updated anytime. Malden told WPN that the company is constantly updating the software to ensure that it is effective. Also on the plus side, there is no software to install due to the cloud.

For more information on this solution, visit Yield Software.

Leveraging Natural Search

Since there are now so many different ways for people get to websites, natural search has become increasingly difficult over the past few years. Seth Besmertnik, the CEO of Conductor, talked about this idea with WebProNews and explained what search marketers need to do to leverage the changes.

In past years, SEO focused on content and keywords. However, when Google came along, the game changed. Google introduced links in relation to content and more.

Today, organic search is even more complex with personalization, real-time search, social media, and other new features popping up rapidly. As a result of the complexity, Besmertnik emphasized the need to have a scalable infrastructure that tracks everything.

He said this is critically important for businesses that want to compete in natural search. In addition, businesses that want to find synergies between their marketing efforts need to make sure they make the most of one area before they add more and complicate matters.

Besmertnik used the analogy that “you have to have bricks before you can build a wall.” Ultimately, companies will not be able to successfully blend efforts until each is established.