I am doing good in certain keywords. Should I also bid on PPC for those keywords? Does anyone have studies or experiences about this?

Thank you!

Gselvais

You'll hear both side - some folks say if you rank well, bid for top placement to give yourself more exposure.

Others will say, if you rank well organically, don't spend money chasing the phrase via PPC.

I fall into the second camp, BUT, it does depend on your model.

Since my sites are all ad revenue supported, and we rely on page views, PPC is simply a much more expensive way to boost page views - why would I spend that money on PPC when organic gives me good results.

If you're selling products, it's a different story - having that exposure in organic and PPC on one page can make the difference between being thought of at the time of sale or overlooked in some cases.

Look at your budget, review the costs for the keywords and move forward from there.

make sure you set out a plan, with goals, and measure against it. if the PPC side is not performing, don't keep bleeding money hoping it'll pick up - get some pro help or get on it yourself.

One study indicated that when an ad and an organic listing both appear on the first page traffic will increase 30% to that site. I would try to place my ad about fourth on the page to get the benefit and increase odds they'll click on the organic listing instead.

See - Rose does it again! THAT is an excellent tip/tactic Rose! Increase the exposure and use the positioning to lead users to click the organic listing - I LOVE it!

You'll still end up paying for some clicks. I have never found any market research that indicates what percentage clicked on the organic versus the paid when present on the same page. It would definitely be affected by the position of the ad.

I love the word Steve Klug uses in his book Don't Make Me Think. He says Internet users do not consider all options and choose the best one. Most "satisfice" - they click on the first link that is "close enough".

Yes, that's definitely a great tip, Rose. You should definitely be in the organic and the PPC results.

As an interesting note, I know a site that bids on their own company name--and their PPC ad always shows in the number one spot (just above their organic listing). Turns out that only 10 percent of the people click on that ad--90 percent click on their organic search result even though the paid ad is there.

Wow, Bill! That is an important piece of information. I'm really surprised so many click on the organic listing. Is there any reason that their visitors would know the difference between paid and free links?

I always advise advertisers to pay for clicks on every variation of their own company name. The odds someone specifically looking for you will buy are about as good as they get. It just makes sense to make it easy for them to find you - and preferably before they decide to check out someone else!

For most advertisers, bids on their own company name are some of the least expensive they can buy. The increased conversions from searchers who choose the paid link over the free one more than pay for the cost.

Landing them on what they want to buy instead of making them look for it on your site will generate more sales. Even if you have a good search function on your site, the more results they have to wade through the less likely they'll complete the purchase before they get distracted by something else.

Well, the latest user/eye tracking heat maps help shed some light on user behavior and how they interact with search results.

It's open to interpretation, but some basic things are pretty clear - being listed lower in the paid results really isn't good.

Users either don't know the difference between the top, across the page sponsored results space, or want to click that paid spot dramatically more than the other paid placement locations.

And top is good, bottom is bad. - no news there.

Here's a random one I found in Google images.

My interpretation is different than most people's. Being at the top will definitely get you far more traffic and you will spend 40-60+% more in those positions; however, many advertisers will spend more than their profits.

I believe the main reason for that is what I call "automatic" clicks: the user enters a search and clicks on the first result without reading it. When that isn't what they want they back up and many will click on the second, again without reading it. When they back up again they get more selective.

Even if you like those positions and they generally pay off for you be sure that your search terms are highly targeted or you're going to see a really high bounce rate to go with your really high click costs.

You can drive far more sales and higher revenue but tank your profitability in the process. For most of my clients I target positions 3-5 and do my best to stay out of those top two positions above the organic results. [NOTE: this is contrary to what most large SEM companies and the PPC engines advise.]

On products with low profit margins or sites with poor conversion rates I target the very bottom of the first page of results. Sales without profits only put you out of business faster.

You'll pay less for advertising, make fewer overall sales, and enjoy much higher conversions and profits. Those who are serious about buying will seek you out. This works best when you have ad copy that stands out from the crowd. It works extremely well when you are the only advertiser whose ad actually includes the keyword phrase in it.

Remember Steve Krug's "satisficing" when employing that strategy. You may want to bid above key competitors for some phrases and reduce spending when you know there are no "satisficing" ads above you on the page.

According to eyetracking results, people are more likely to click on the top left side of google page. Those studies show that people almost never look at the ad text listings on the right, but being there just helps your exposure and other benefits just like Flyingrose said.

I would just like to say that I believe the trust/conversion ratio is not so high when you display as listed in both the organic and the adwords results. In my limited experience it is the organic search click throughs that see higher page views and conversions than the adwords...

FR - do you have many examples of clients displaying in both? Can you tell me more?

Results are going to vary depending on what you're advertising and the demographics of your particular visitors. There is a huge difference between selling to the general public - a large percentage of whom don't know the difference between a paid listing and an organic one - and selling to other SEOs who obviously would.

That difference is why I wanted to know who the probable visitors would be in Bill's example. If they are techies then they might be clicking on the free listing intentionally. If they are the general public that might indicate that they're clicking on the second listing they see possibly simply because it IS the second time they've seen that site and it seems familiar (even if they're not aware of WHY it seems familiar).

Anyone can now see a lot of information on who their visitors are and some of what works if they use a free Google Analytics account. I say "some" of "what works" because using only last visit clicks to track conversions is NOT reliable AT ALL. There are other threads where I've posted information about that.

Since I am not an SEO I do not systematically track whether my clients appear in the organic results nor where they appear. I do often see their listings in the course of my work; however, since many of my clients do not know anything about SEO when I first start advertising for them most of them will not have an organic listing for the keywords generating conversions through ads.

I am asking permission from some clients to post revenue graphs from their Yahoo Store Control panels. They won't be identifiable to their business - they are graphs of daily sales with trend lines and total revenue over the period of time shown in the graphs. In the coming year I will post examples of graphs showing actual results driven by PPC advertising.

Where demand exists and Web sites are properly designed, it is possible to double or triple revenue in a few weeks using PPC ads. I do that regularly and will post examples so that others can see the potential and what they too can do.