Buying Your Way to the Top on an SERP

Most Website owners spend their nights dreaming of appearing at the top of a Google or Bing or Yahoo SERP (Search Engine Results Page) listing. To the small site owners out there this would be like getting in to play with the big kids. So why not just buy your way to the top?

Organic vs. Sponsored Links

When you get a SERP hit list in response to the query you entered into the engine your eyes almost automatically gravitate towards the left side of the screen. That’s where you see the organic or natural results. These are the results the Search Engine found through its complicated algorithmic process that best match your query request. No human intervention produced these results. At the top and to the right of the screen you’ll see the sponsored or paid listings. These appear as a result of that most basic of all human interventions: money! Those top positions have been bought and paid for, usually as part of an ad campaign you have undoubtedly heard of: Pay Per Click, or PPC. So yes you can buy your way to the top. If you have enough money you can fulfill your dreams and brag to your friends that your site is now appearing on the first page of a Google SERP without the benefit of an SEO website design. Although you can do it, a more appropriate issue is should you do it.

Using PPC

There is some debate amongst Internet marketing experts about PPC campaigns versus a traditional SEO (Search Engine Optimization) campaign. Some experts see no value at all in a PPC campaign and others say the same about SEO campaigns. Some combine elements of both. The advocates of exclusive use of PPC campaigns point out that SEO is like trying to hit a moving target since the Search engine providers are constantly changing the way they produce their results. The common criticism revolves around who you are trying to please: the Internet User or the Search Engine Provider. Some Website owners see their sites fall off the first three pages of a SERP and have no idea what happened. Most experts agree that an effective SEO campaign will take months to begin to yield significant results.

PPC directly targets the Internet visitor. What’s more, Pay per Click listings generally yield results immediately. And the results are reasonably predictable. You know what a high position on a SERP will cost, although will not know with one hundred percent certainty what the clicking visitor will do when he or she arrives on your site. In the light of all this why would anyone consider launching an SEO campaign?

Studies show that about thirty percent of Internet users click sponsored links in preference to organic links listed on the same page. It doesn’t take a math expert to figure out that about seventy percent of users are clicking the organic or natural links — a better than two to one majority. That is the central argument in favor of SEO campaigns versus PPC campaigns. But if you think like an Internet user you might realize that those who click sponsored links are a little different than those who click organic links. They are looking for something more specific. If you think of SEO and PPC as targeting different kinds of Internet traffic, it might make sense to do both.