I have always liked article marketing. However, that is not to say that I have not entertained the idea that maybe a PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising might be a better choice. Both are working in completely diverse ways, with PPC selling the business through getting the search engines to show specific keywords and paying when the ads are clicked and article marketing harnessing the power of writing short articles to promote the website, there’s no denying that these online marketing strategies can be very effective in gettting imposing outcomes in terms of getting the website out there within the prospective customer’s clicking distance .
I’m delighted that I chance upon Valerie Mellena’s article called “The Last Word in PPC vs. Article Marketing.” The article meticulously considers these two online advertising techniques with statistics strengthening 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 approve of what she said here. I, for one, would always read the search results list first and foremost before I even look at the PPC ads.
With article marketing, she went on 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 cited information with sources from ComScore, Webxico, iProspect, SEOResearcher and Hotchkiss, Garrison, and Jensen, which stated, that “77% of search users choose organic (article) listings over PPC ads”. There were also studies that pointed out that organic click-through generated 25% higher conversion rates than the equivalent Pay-Per-Click (PPC) click-through. Reading this got me persuaded that article marketing is the better choice when it comes to advertising products, but Mellena wrote some strong points 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 published statistics 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, the author continued and stated that a extensive disadvantage for PPC promotion is that it exploits the prospective clients’ idiosyncrasies. “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 support 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 method like that is virtually unbeatable. Can you dream of an endless traffic flowing in perpetually? Now that’s an amazing marketing plan.
With regards to ROI, a review conducted by distinguished blogger Gord Hotchkiss disclosed that article marketing is more uniform (albeit slower) than PPC as far as to Return-On-Investment. Mellena expounded on this subject by providing a series 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 obvious that in the end, the author sided with 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 opinion as hers. How about you?
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