How to make Money with Search Engine Optimization when Pay per Click is a Bust

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When any company sets out to make money online the most obvious and potentially rewarding avenues are to use a Pay per Click (PPC) marketing strategy as well as OrganicSearch Engine Optimization (SEO). The PPC strategy is simple. Determine words you think people might be searching for who want to buy your product or service, place a bid for the amount you are willing to pay for a visitor, and then refine your bids based on how many visitors actually buy your product or service as your campaign runs. But in reality, it can be very difficult to turn a profit, on competitive search terms, where many advertisers are competing for the same space, driving margins lower and lower. With that being said, PPC is not without value, but it is not always the best solution for your business objectives!  Many products and services can achieve a significantly better return on investment (ROI) using SEO. In Fact, with some products and services, it may be impossible to turn a profit with pay per Click while the same keywords are highly profitable using SEO.

For example, let’s say you are selling widgets and you’ve been running a Pay per Click campaign for the keyword ABC widgets. ABC widgets get 100,000 searches per month. To be on the first page, you need to spend at least one dollar per click, i.e. 100 dollars for 100 visitors. You sell your widgets and turn a profit of 30 dollars each. Over the last month you have seen a 3% conversion rate, therefore you are selling $90 for $100 dollars spent and losing $10 dollars in the process. This is obviously not a good way to make money! However, the PPC campaign has given you very valuable information on your conversion rate on the keyword ABC widgets.

Now, let’s take a look at the same example using SEO as a vehicle to expand this keyword instead of PPC. If you have first page placement, using an SEO campaign, you could see anywhere from 3% to up to 25% of that 100,000 searchers click through to your site, that means that you can anticipate anywhere from 3,000 to 25,000 visitors to your site per month and we already know that through the PPC campaign, on this keyword you convert 3% of your visitors into sales. So with SEO you will generate 90 to 750 sales for your widget at $30 each, giving you a gross profit of $2700 to 22,500 per month.

 

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