Being a writer, I have always thought that article marketing is the more valuable search engine optimization(SEO) tool over pay-per-click because article marketing offers a more stable and long term effect. Both are operating in completely unique methods, with PPC advertising the products and services by means of getting the search engines to show specific keywords and paying when the ads are clicked and article marketing harnessing the effectivenes of writing short articles to promote the website, there’s no escaping the fact that these online marketing methods can be very successful in bringing excellent results in terms of getting the website out there within the potential customer’s clicking distance .
I’m delighted that I stumble upon Valerie Mellena’s piece called “The Last Word in PPC vs. Article Marketing.” It meticulously analyzes these two marketing techniques with statistics reinforcing her findings. “In figuring out which of the two is better, you have to consider cost-effectiveness as well as click-through-rates and direct conversion from visiting user to paying customer,” she wrote.
“Search engine result pages display more listings than PPC results, which does have a psychological effect on the user,” wrote Mellena. “For some users seeing ten search results is enough to convince them that there is enough web information on the subject and that “fishing” PPC ads might not be necessary”. I wholly agree on what she wrote here. I, for one, would almost without thinking read the search results list first and foremost before I even check out at the PPC ads.
With article marketing, she continued by saying that, “In order to actually rank in the Top 10 SEO results for your keyword, you have to have relevant website content, not to mention technical prowess in HTML coding”. Search engines then determine which website is more relevant, unlike in PPC where, in her words, “whoever bids the highest for each word usually gets the top listing. In the end money talks.”
She then puts the question if you are ”appealing to the fast clicker or the thoughtful user.”
Mellena made reference to figures with sources from ComScore, Webxico, iProspect, SEOResearcher and Hotchkiss, Garrison, and Jensen, which observed, that “77% of search users choose organic (article) listings over PPC ads”. A few other studies suggested that organic click-through resulted in 25% higher conversion rates than the correspondent Pay-Per-Click (PPC) click-through. After knowing all these, it got me persuaded that article marketing is the better choice when it comes to advertising products, but Mellena wrote some advantages about PPC advertising that made me think again. “The best feature PPC has is that it gets instantaneous results. SEO advertising takes time,” she wrote. “PPC brings you immediate traffic and sometimes brings in thousands of users.”
She also observed that Comscore released data favoring PPC, revealing that their studied users had an 18.3% click-through-rate on “paid” search results as opposed to 4.3% click-through rate for organic search results.
However, she continued and stated that a extensive downside for PPC advertising is that it makes the most of the prospective clients’ curiosity. “When that curiosity fades, they forget your website – especially if it’s just a glorified advertisement.” She also added that, “Most users know that PPC ads usually aren’t relevant to their search – they’re just there because someone is constantly paying big bucks to get noticed.”
She then proceeded on to praise article marketing as “an investment that continually pays all through the life of your company (or until you shut the website down) since it generates traffic forever.” A promotional technique like that is nearly unbeatable. Can you think of an unending traffic coming in perpetually? Now that’s an outstanding marketing plan.
With regards to ROI, a study conducted by prominent blogger Gord Hotchkiss revealed that article marketing is more dependable (nonetheless slower) than PPC as far as to Return-On-Investment. Mellena expounded on this topic by providing a succession of calculations of sorts, for example: “Let’s say you have 50 high traffic search terms. Now for these 50 terms, there are 2.8 million searches being launched in a month,” she wrote. “If statistics like ComScore’s are correct and unbiased, that translates to 456,000 visitors thanks to PPC and 153,000 visitors thanks to article marketing.”
“The total cost of those 456,000 PPC visitors would amount to over $500,000 with an average CPC of $1.18. Even if you work with an SEO company that charges top dollar ($10,000 a month, let’s say) you’re still paying $10,000 compared to half a million. That means article marketing’s virtual CPC amounts to $0.07. Even if you apply PPC’s higher conversion rate, 3,647 converted visitors, you are paying $147.08 for each individual person. Compare that to 611 visitors you earned through article marketing – you are paying $16.37 for each visitor. And in doing so, you are also earning a higher quality of customer and generating traffic until the end of days.”
It is reasonably clear that in the end, the author preferred article marketing as the superior technique. “When it comes to earning quality traffic, article marketing gets the last word.” I’m inclined to have the same view as hers. How about you?
