There are many companies on the Internet, who are promising that
if you give them lots of money, they will guarantee you top
rankings in the search engines. Buyer Beware!!!
Let Me Cut To The Chase
We all want to be on page one of Google's search engine results
(SERPs). After all, the higher our websites rank in Google, the
more money we will make. Every single one of us who have built
commercial websites are looking to make money and perhaps even to
get rich doing whatever it is we do at our websites.
But just because you and I both want to be on page one of
Google's SERPs, does not mean you or I will be on page one of
the results. Think about this objectively: no matter who we are
or what we do, we are typically challenging thousands or millions
of other web pages in our niche, for the keywords that we hope
will make us rich.
Understanding Search Engine Results
There are actually two sets of listings in the search engines.
- On the left, you will see the "organic listings", which by
definition are free;
- On the right hand side of the page in the search engine
results, you will find the "Pay-Per-Click listings" (PPC).
Placement in the PPC listings is an auction environment. The
highest bidder on a keyword will be in the top spot in the
PPC results. The second highest bid will hold the second
spot, etc.
Comparing Organic and Pay-Per-Click Listings
Those who wish to rank in the organic search results will need
to employ Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques to improve
their rankings. There are literally hundreds of SEO companies,
who specialize in helping their clients climb in the "organic"
search result listings. But, SEO is a time-consuming process that
requires the efforts of specialists, who have actual knowledge
and skills in manipulating the search engine results. Here is
what Google has to say about this practice and its accompanying
industry:
Google Webmaster Help Center
Those who wish to employ paid search listings (PPC), which can
frequently be much cheaper than getting to the top of the organic
listings, will utilize one of the following services:
- Google Adwords
- Yahoo Search Marketing
- 7 Search
- The ISEDN is a bit different than the other search advertising
networks. First off, they do not charge a fee for each click.
Instead, they charge a quarterly placement fee. Also, instead
of representing one large search engine, their ads appear on
225+ smaller search engines.
Organic listings are best if you can get them, because they will
deliver free traffic to your website, sometimes for years. On the
other hand, given the cost of developing organic rankings, it
often makes more sense to pay a little bit each month for PPC
search traffic, rather than to pay thousands per month, sometimes
for years, just to break into the top few pages of the organic
search results.
Some Real-World Perspective
To get your website into page one of the organic search results,
can be a daunting process. To put this into perspective, I ran
some popular keywords through Google to see how many search
results would be found. Here we go:
- travel - 1,410,000,000 results
- HDTV televisions - 2,310,000
- hybrid cars - 15,700,000
- homes for sale - 96,000,000
- real estate agents - 72,100,000
- divorce attorneys - 1,640,000
- cancer treatments - 3,610,000
- credit card applications - 7,520,000
- credit report - 51,700,000
With 1.4 Billion (with a "B", not a "M") pages vying for page
one results in Google for the word "travel", and 72 million
pages struggling to be seen in Google for the search term "real
estate agents", is it any wonder that the people in many
industries are struggling to be seen online?
If your competitors are struggling to be at the top of the search
results, so will you, unless you have extremely deep pockets.
With that having been said, there are some industries where
getting to page one will take an investment of millions, and then
there still are No Guarantees that you will succeed in your
endeavor.
There Is More Than One Way To Skin A Cat
At the end of each day, only ten websites will ever be on page
one of the organic search results. But, pay-per-click lets anyone
who has some money to spend, break into page one of the search
results.
Depending on your bank account and your business model, SEO or
PPC may be the answer to getting people to visit your website and
to buy what you are selling. Depending on your keywords, the
ISEDN advertising opportunity may make more sense. I have used
the ISEDN network, and I still do use them
for some of my own advertising.
But when all is said and done, what matters is for you to get
your advertising message in front of the people most likely to
buy what you are selling.
My Advertising Model Of Choice
In my years online, I have always turned to article marketing to
get my sales message in front of the people most likely to buy
my products or services.
Case in point. You are reading an article that I have written, to
speak to those people who are looking for ways to advertise their
business online. And at the end of this article, you will see
what is called a "resource box" or the "about the author
information". The resource box, at the end of this article, is
my advertisement for my business.
If you reach the end of this article and you read my resource
box, then I will have succeeded in getting you (someone in my
target audience) to read my advertisement. If you click the link
in the resource box, then I will have succeeded in getting a
potential client to visit my website. And finally, if you buy my
products or services, then my website will have accomplished its
purpose - to turn its visitors into buyers.
The interesting truth is - and few people will point this out to
you - if you click the link below and visit my website, then you
will have reached my website without actually passing through a
search engine to get to it. That is the beauty of article
marketing - you can use this advertising model to reach your
target audience, regardless of how well or how badly you rank in
the search engines.
In Conclusion
There is only one company who can guarantee you top rankings in
Google, and that company is Google. Although Google could
guarantee you top rankings in their search results, they won't
do it; not for any amount of money.
So when you see some other company making pie-in-the-sky promises
about how they can "guarantee your search engine rankings", get
a solid grasp on your wallet and run... the other way... fast...
About The Author
Bill Platt has written 100+ articles to promote his business online... Why? Because article marketing works miracles,
for those people who actually seek to educate their readers. Bill has provided ghost writing and article distribution
services to his clients, since 2001, at thephantomwriters.com. In 2007,
Bill wrote an ebook to teach people how to duplicate his article writing success, by teaching folks how to write articles
that attract publishers and readers, traffic, sales and profits. Visit:
http://thephantomwriters.com/ebooks/article-marketing-traffic.html
