SEO Myth #3 – Paid Search Bolsters Organic Results
In order to get the maximum impact of your SEO efforts, many people believe that SEO isn’t complete until you participate in Pay-Per-Click/AdWords/SEM/Paid Search. The companies who pay millions of dollars each month to buy traffic through these methods would sure like to think that it works. Unfortunately it has been proven time and time again that SEM does NOT affect your SEO ranking efforts at all.
There are 3 primary blocks of information on a SERP (search engine results page): Organic, Paid & Local.
The ‘Local’ element is in reference to the map component, primarily shown when a geographical query is entered.
The ‘Paid’ element refers to the varied number of sponsored ads found on a SERP. These are primarily found at the top and on the right hand side of the page.
The ‘Organic’ element is the all of the results outside of the previous two categories. This element not only takes up the most space on a SERP, but by FAR these results are clicked on versus the others. As well, it is worth noting that this is the area where effective SEO sees its results.
Each section has its own algorithm to determine what is relevant and when specific results are displayed. At one time the Local/map section was completely on its own but there is evidence that both the Local and Organic take on similar ranking cues in some cases.
The PPC element though is complete stand alone. You can’t influence either of the other two elements via paying for these ads. In some cases it has been seen that bidding on keywords you already rank for organically can help your CTR (click through rate) but there is absolutely no evidence that this works the other way around.
Advanced Web Solutions believes that all three aspects, Local, Organic and Paid, require attention. As a company local to Kitchener, Waterloo, Guelph and Cambridge, we have proven that SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is ideal for your Organic listings as well as Local (but with a slight twist). SEM (Search Engine Marketing), or Paid Search, can be a key element at times but ‘paying’ for traffic can get very expensive, leaving SEO again as a primary element to drive qualified traffic to your website.
Myth #1: Meta Tags are extremely important to your rankings
Myth #2: Search Engine Submission is the best way to let the search engines know who you are
Myth #3: Paid Search participation will help your Organic rankings
Myth #4: Ignore Google – Black Hat SEO works
Myth #5: More websites means more ways to entice prospective customers
Myth #6: I have a website so now people will find my business
Myth #7: My company name is 1st on Google so my site is optimized
Myth #8: My web designer Optimized my website so I’m good to go
