You might think that after you get a website, business will just start pouring in and you’ll become an instant online success. You can dream all you want, but it just won’t happen without some type of plan in place to promote your website. One of the most popular and cost effective promotion methods is with the search engines. But how do you get your website in front of your intended audience when there are thousands of other websites competing against you? That’s where SERP marketing comes into play.
SERP stands for search engine results page, which is the webpage that appears after you type a keyword or phrase into a search box on Google, Yahoo or Bing. Most SERPs consist of two elements – organic search results and text advertisements. Organic search results are achieved through various search engine optimization (SEO) techniques on your website with ranking determined by the search engine. Text advertisements are pay-per-click (PPC) ads targeting specific keywords that you purchase from a search engine. SERP marketing combines these the two elements of SEO and PPC to achieve the best results when trying to attract potential customers via the search engines.
In the image below, you can see a Google SERP and where the basic elements reside. There are two PPC areas shown in red, one to the right and one above the organic results, shown in green. These can vary depending upon the search term and the search engine involved.
Organic Search Results with SEO
Everyone wants to be in the top 10 spots on a SERP. Who wouldn’t? According to a leaked AOL search database report, about 90% of all search engine users will usually click on one of the top 10 results on the first results page. Only 10% of users will move on to subsequent pages. The report indicates that users will typically choose the first result given about 42% of the time while the tenth result only receives about 3% of the clicks. In total, the top 5 spots receive over 73% of the total clicks. Obviously, the effectiveness of a top 10 search ranking cannot be ignored.
Getting high rankings in organic search results is not an easy task, but once you’re there, the benefits can be enormous. The only legitimate way to achieve these high search rankings is with appropriate search engine optimization techniques. SEO is a tricky business and it can take a great deal of time and effort to achieve the desired results. Getting your website organically listed on a SERP is extremely desirable.
Advertising with PPC
The other method of getting on a SERP is with pay-per-click advertising. All of the major search engines offer PPC tools – Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing, and Microsoft adCenter for Bing. How PPC works is that you pick specific keywords for your ad, write your ad and then bid against other advertisers for placement on the SERPs. The ad is displayed alongside the organic search results and search engine users have the opportunity to click on your ad, taking them to your website.
Unlike organic search results, PPC does cost money – and if you’re not careful, it can cost a lot of money. For some extremely popular keywords, a bid can cost you $5 per click or more when there are several websites competing against you. If you have it in your advertising budget to spend that much, then go for it. However, most website owners can’t afford click rates that high and one mistake can easily wipe out an entire marketing budget for the year in a single day.
For most PPC advertisers, I recommend a “choose your battles wisely” approach to pay-per-click. If every advertiser is bidding on a specific keyword, try an alternate keyword at a lower rate. The results may surprise you. While you may not get as many clicks as the more expensive keyword, you won’t be spending as much money on PPC ads as the other guys.
SEO + PPC = SERP Marketing
If you want to get the best possible SERP results for your website, you need to combine search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising. While either one can be effective as a standalone products, think about what they can do together. The goal of SERP marketing is to create the perfect blend of SEO and PPC in one convenient package so you may achieve the maximum return on your investment.
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