Paid Searches are Down
According to Hitwise, paid searches are down by 26% for the same period last year. This is a significant change which is said to reflect the problems of the current economic climate.
What are paid searches?
Paid searches are those where a company pays for its ranking on a search engine. It is something that is very easy to set up but requires a certain level of skill to implement well. Your company’s important keywords are identified (this is a skilful process which takes careful analysis and a degree of creative thought and artistry). Once you have these words you can approach search engines who then charge you for promoting your site according to your keyword choices.
The paid searches appear at the top of the search listings and are usually distinguishable from the natural listings by a difference in size, colour or highlighting. The theory is that the top listings will be clicked on more. Each time someone clicks on your link you pay the search engine company an agreed amount which is dependant on the popularity of your chosen keywords. An accurate keyword campaign can be very lucrative and a misguided one, very costly. Google Adwords makes the process very easy and anyone can set up an account and start experimenting with the results. Google analytics is a programme which looks at your traffic and click-through conversion rates and helps to guide further changes and although available to all, is a complicated and technical programme.
Decline in Paid Searches
The Hitwise survey found that in the four-week period ending in April 2008, nearly 10% (9.84%) of search engine traffic came from paid clicks. This figure declined by 26% for the same period in 2009 to 7.25%. The only sector which reported an increase in paid advertisement was education which saw a rise from 1.39% to 1.45%.
Reasons for Change
Although paid searches guarantee you a top-spot they can be costly. Avoiding high costs means being skilled at choosing the right words and analysing the results and this means either investing a lot of time in getting you or your staff up to speed or employing experts who can guide your campaign within your overall marketing strategy.
Avoiding high costs has led people to look at cheaper ways to market their online presence. A greater awareness of how search engines like to rank has led to people making more of their sites in a bid to increase natural listings. The search engines are super-open with information on how to make to most of your site naturally.
Social networking sites have created a platform from where to funnel visitors to your site and their increasing popularity is having its effect. The same applies to bloging which is a cost effective way to gather cross-market traffic. Additionally email marketing has increased in popularity as it is a highly personal and cost effective way to target your market.
Conclusions
We will more than likely see an increase in creative, natural and viral marketing campaigns which will reflect the needs of the current economic climate. However with the high levels of competition that are set to increase in the natural search listings market, paid listings are still a very serious option. We may see a reduction in costs for pay-per-click as there will be less competition for keywords. The important point is that whatever you do it needs to be cost effective. Implementing the right campaign and analysing the results to capitalise on your successes and minimise your risks will be essential and seeking expert guidance in order to do this is highly recommended.
Tags: Blogging, email marketing, Google AdSense, Google Analytics, natural listings, natural searches, paid searches, social networking