Honestly the answers to these questions are highly relative and would depend on many factors and considerations. SEO and PPC both have their pros and cons. SEO strategy is used to rank your website higher in the organic search results of search engines. SEM (PPC) on the other hand involves paid advertising on the search engine results and other web pages.

Let us dig deeper into the subject by first busting a long held myth that PPC is costlier than SEO. No, it isn’t! In fact you may very well need to spend about $5,000 or more over 6 to 8 months, to get your page on top listing for highly competitive key words like weight loss or life insurance. A PPC advertisement however, can easily be seen in the visible spots on related pages. And it is relatively easier to control your budget for the PPC campaign.

A recent survey mentions that the websites receive 8 times more clicks from the organic search results than the clicks from PPC; however the goal achievement and conversion ratio is 1.5 times higher for the traffic coming from a PPC advertisement.

SEO obviously is a long term strategy. It may take about 3 to 6 months to see the actual measurable effects of the SEO campaigns. On the other hand PPC campaigns can give you immediate traffic. The biggest benefit of a PPC campaign is the speed of the expansive reach. It frees you of the headache of trying to figure out the search engine algorithms, and how can reach to the top position in the listing.
Thus if the website is about sale of products for Christmas where you would like to give away discounts and bonuses, the best way to go would be a PPC campaign. Because, in this case, it will be too late till the time SEO starts showing its outcome.
Another upside a PPC has over SEO is that the SEM campaign can be managed and changed in real time. PPC gives you the opportunity to hit the internet market with right advertisement at the right time thus grabbing quick eyeballs. With a PPC campaign it is easier to target large number of key words, whereas optimizing the website landing pages for a higher number of keywords is a highly daunting task. Hence a rightly managed and appropriately monitored PPC campaign will surly increase conversion ratio and gives a better ROI than a SEO.

As a customer you might just go through the remaining results, that catches your attention or try on with a new search phrase for a better set of results.

As a more technology savvy user, you might laugh at Google’s search algorithm and wonder what the “Pocket PC Services” has to do with “PPC Service” and carry on.

However, what if you are in the on-line business providing zone? Would you not rub your eyes and get blatantly surprised? You’ll wonder how it could be possible. You would go back and refresh the page, might be several times, and if still you see the Pocket PC Services as a result for PPC services, you certainly would lose faith in the business abilities of the unerring search magnum.

How can Google, the leader in PPC business not understand the impact of losing the search by one competitor, and in this case not even a competitor?
How can the ruler of SEM allow one’s quality score to get affected by such an outrageous activity?

How can the LSA fail like this? Anyone endowed with the technological reasoning would understand that the algorithm can never err. It would under no circumstances deviate like this.

So, is the crawler crawling wrong limbs or is it one more of Google’s evil designs???

Three European web sites alleged Google of anti-competitive behavior and said that, the Internet search giant was unfairly steering traffic away from them.  The three sites: Foundem, a British retail price comparison site; ejustice.fr, a French legal search engine; and Ciao from Bing, a Microsoft-owned shopping site that operates in Europe, alleges the search engine magnate, Google, of deceitful conduct.

The lines sound interesting and surely demand a pondering. Let us try to uncover the story, where lies the problem, why is the giant being probed?

Google AdWords, PPC, Bidding rates and Click Through activity…

All of us are aware of Google AdWords, it is the PPC Advertising service offered by Google, through which it displays click-able links from advertisers, in exchange for a charge per click.

PPC requires the advertiser to bid on key words in order to buy a top position in the search engine results for a particular keyword. Google determines the placement of the ad based on the bidding price and the ad’s click-through activity. The advertiser pays for each click made by a search engine user, through which advertisers’ web page gets a reckoning and is ranked accordingly.

Google AdWords is a powerful advertisement arena, by Google through which it is managing PPC sites. The problem is that, Google is being unfair by promoting its own products on every page it springs out. Google is indexing itself first amongst the PPC sites, whenever any keyword is searched for, here is the catch. Even if the keyword is not related to Google AdWords or Google Maps or some other Google product, Google is systematically favoring its own products, and indexing it foremost on most of the pages delivered by the search engine, irrespective of the keyword.

The service protocol of PPC, assures the advertisers, that their web sites will be delivered to the audience targeting the keywords, and the advertisers have to compete with their adversaries for the ranking through bidding and click through activity.

Let’s view this in affect:

If someone in US wishes to search for ‘SEO Service’, then the resulting page which Google shoots forward is like this:

We all know that “Google.com/AdWords”, is not a SEO Service provider…

What’s fraudulent here…?

No doubt, Google is unfairly steering away the traffic, by ranking the other sites lower to its own site, thus decreasing the click through activity and increasing the bidding rates. Moreover, it is violating its own protocol of delivering the clients’ link to a visitor, appropriate to the keyword being searched, by posing itself as a competitor to most client sites, irrespective of the keyword.

Let’s wait and watch the ramifications…

So now, when the titan is undergoing antitrust scrutiny by U.S. regulators, and is facing the music, let us see how it handles the ramifications of the allegations it has been alleged with.

• Seek Professional Help

If you really want to make any difference in your landing page conversions, we would need the help of professional experts. Go for specialists contributing to their dedicated area of expertise in order to maximize your landing page exposure, experience and off course conversions.

• Hire an SEM for SEO and PPC.
• A social expert for SMM.
• An expert web copy writer for web writing.
• A proven web page designer for landing page design.
• An experienced designer for additional conversion tips & tricks.
• A qualified web tester to monitor testing

• Choose the Best Possible Content & Design

Check your contents including design from all angles. The copy, size, colors, the placement of buttons, the functionality of your page, headlines must all be effectively managed. Check the copy for length, grammar and formality; images for type, size, color, variations and placement. Visual click heat-maps are great to gain an understanding of paths of interest, and to effectively make changes in layouts and design. Just make sure to give yourself the best possible content and design in order to optimize your own conversion rate.

• Compare Pricing Structures

Make it easy for comparison shoppers. Keep abreast with periodical reviews and check pricing on products and services. You need not be the cheapest to sell. You only need to be the most informative, authoritative and should have maintained a good reputation of delivery and performance. Goodwill is an asset no business can do without. Pass on these positive reviews to R&D. Conversion optimization is a combined process, where all units perform equally well.

• Keep Mandatory Completion Elements at Minimum

If the conversion page includes a form keep the mandatory completion elements at the minimum. Include as much of auto fill wherever possible and make this as easy as you can. Encourage click to subscribe with enticing content, offers and future discounts. Focus on the core objective should no way be lost.

• Target Your Landing Pages

Each target market demographic is distinctly different in many ways. Younger, or older; employed, or unemployed, or retired; attentive or inattentive, busy or bored, and all relevant parameters must be properly evaluated and effectively targeted.

• Pre-test Your Landing Page for Being Effective

Usability is all about how fast the essence and functionality of a page are communicated and how quick and effective this is in engaging. Test this on folks and find out. Just give them 6-8 seconds at the most to tell you what they think this page –

• is about
• if they liked it
• if they felt like leaving
• what stands out
• if they would like to bookmark it.

This will give you a fairly good idea of where exactly you stand.

• Learn & Run With Competition

Although online and offline competitors are different, keeping track of what both engage in will come very useful. You would be also wiser to learn from their experiences as well, so that you can save on both, your money and your time. Take their learning’s and make sure to run with them at the same time.

• Finish With an Attractive “Add to Cart” button

Color has a deeper impact most often than even the size and shape. Your ‘add to cart’ button has a lot to say than just that. Make sure that the shade of the color, shape and size are not only compatible with your business it should also be elegant and most effectively designed.

You are now perfectly placed. So get going – what are you waiting for. There is no one, no one can stop you now.

Try searching for ‘Affiliate Programs’ in Google and the first in the list of Paid Ads is of…

Yes, Google Adsense.

So, why does Google need to run PPC for its Adsense Program for major keywords -

1. Affiliate Programs
2. Healthcare+Affiliate Programs
3. Top Affiliate Programs
4. Healthcare Affiliate Programs

…..Is Google scared of other Affiliate programs?

…..Is it fair for Google to outbid its competitors on its own paid network?