Using PPC in informational searches
-
What is your take on using PPC to be the "first" result in an informational search when your goal is truly to deliver information, educate, and affect public opinion?
I'm following a large bureaucratic non-governmental organization who has a mission to get accurate information to the public -- they have nothing to literally sell, not even donations -- they're a membership NGO, and this is part of their charity mission. They have sat at about 6th place in the organic rankings for years, while other non-profits and for-profit companies on the other side of the issue (that do have something to literally sell to the traffic they generate off this search) rank in the number 2 and 4 spot. Wikipedia ranks number 1. An About.com site generally ranks #3.
On related long tail keywords the bureaucratic NGO often doesn't even rank at all in the organic searches -- it's all the opposing non-profits and for-profits dominating those long tail informational searches.
Now I'm seeing the bureaucratic NGO is doing PPC to be the first result on the main search and a bunch of long tails. I am seeing some changes in their website, too, to make it less bureaucratic, more user-friendly, less technical and boring, and more visual and interesting. I'm not privy to what they're doing internally, and I'm not sure if they are doing link-building for climbing in the organic rankings. I'm a newbie to SEO - most of my understanding is based on Moz Beginner's Guide, Moz Link guide, discussions on here, and what I find from googling about SEO concepts. I gather from the google searches that I've done that you don't normally try to use PPC to buy first place in informational searches -- that with informational searches, you should be emphasizing quality link building. I'm also not sure how sustainable it would be to stay at the top position by buying the top position through PPC -- although its conceivable to me that this organization could do that indefinitely, because they're not trying to make a profit off these searches, and they're big and got the bucks.
Any insights on PPC in purely informational campaigns?
-
Thank you for posting this! I had read another thread about a non-profit's Google grant, but I didn't fully put two and two together the relevance to this questions, plus how I should get on it with setting it up!
-
Hi,
Have you heard about Google Ad Grants? You should check once whether your website eligible for Ad grants or not.
$10,000 per month.
"Google Ad Grants is the nonprofit edition of AdWords, Google's online advertising tool. Google Ad Grants empowers nonprofit organisations, through $10,000 per month in in-kind AdWords
advertising, to promote their missions and initiatives on Google search result pages."
To know more @ http://www.google.co.in/grants/
Or if not eligible you can start PPC campaign with low budget and if you need any help on running campaign please ask your question here. You will get all the answers.
Hope this helps.
Thanks
-
This is just my opinion. I think that a lot of people who run PPC on informative content are running a "mission" and not a "business". To them the mission is more relevant than the costs.
And, I am sure that a lot of people running PPC for the informative content of a "business" are blowing a lot of money. Of course, all forms of promotion have a cost, so I don't promote my content. I allow and hope that my visitors will do it for me. So far, I am having more success than failures.
-
It's great to get your perspective EGOL -- I have been reading good posts from you on other threads about PPC, too, and those have helped me ramp up my knowledge of PPC.
To clarify, the large bureaucratic NGO is an organization whose mission I support, so I'm interested in whether they're doing good SEM and SEO as a supporter, not as a competitor. I want to see them doing effective things for SEO and getting that mission out there.
Also, I'm interested in their strategy to know when and whether it is effective for my websites as well -- as in: general learning.
-
Some people simply want visibility.
Linda suggests that they have embarked on a new desire for visibility and that their organic efforts will follow. That could be true.
Maybe they have no organic efforts or inept organic efforts.
Whatever the reason, you might never know. All that you know is that they have decided to pay for exposure at this time. It could be a vanity effort or a sign that something impressive is about to occur.
You are probably right. They seem to have a "mission". _These are not the kinds of competitors that I enjoy. This is a situation where Google results reflect "mission" rather than "merit". _
These might be good competitors to have if you want to sell a website that ranks above them. But, at the same time they might not be the type of buyer who's money you would enjoy as much as owning the website above theirs..
-
If you set up a ppc campaign for something you'd like to rank for organically, you can get information you could not get from Google otherwise, such as what searches are bringing up your ad, which can help your organic efforts going forward. It is also a way to get people to see your information when they may not have been able to find it organically yet. It sounds like you have the money available to test this, so try it and see what results you get.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
When Company names confuse search
I am currently perplexed over a client's search results. They are an established company and well known in their field. (Unfortunately, I am not comfortable providing a link or their name.) The company is a consulting firm and let's assume it is an accounting firm, which it is not. When you search on BSC Accounting the results give them the first result but the next 18 results are around education - BSc Accounting. Consider the DA on the site is 34 and the PA for homepage is 39. Is there a chance that when someone is searching on accounting firms that having the BSC in the name skews what they are able to rank for? Forget about searches for their exact name, I am more interested in thoughts as to how the BSC effects general searches for their specialties.
Branding | | RobertFisher1 -
SEO for Facebook's search bar?
Hey everyone! Had a quick question for ya'. Does anyone know if there are currently SEO tactics that are in place to help a company's Facebook page rank in their search bar? For example: When I search "Idaho Auctions" into the facebook search bar, there's a multitude of results - ranging from groups, to events, to businesses. How do these get ranked above each other?
Branding | | TaylorRHawkins1 -
Search website bar
I've noticed when you search business such as Pier 1, William Sonoma, they offer a "Search william-sonoma.com" search bar within the organic search. You can see it when you google William Sonoma. So, the question is, how does that get displayed? Is it something a business can include or is it something that Google will provide if they feel the need too? Appreciate any feedback. Thanks.
Branding | | Kdruckenbrod0 -
How to get an Updated Logo in Search Results?
I'm having trouble getting a new logo in search results. My company, RealSelf, updated our logo over a year ago and both Google and Bing continue to show our old logo in image results. Worst of all, this means that when people look for our logo, they find the wrong one and include that in new, external content. Here's a list of what we've tried: We've modified all the logos on our site with the new one (not including a few PDF whitepapers from before the redesign Added schema.org logo and organization markup Featured a high resolution image on our "Logos" page (top result for "RealSelf logo") Verified wikipedia has the proper image Modified all social profile logos: Twitter, Facebook, G+, etc.. Begun outreach efforts to have high ranking image results update our logo I'm wondering if there are other ideas besides getting more creative/successful with our outreach tactics?
Branding | | RealSelf0 -
Using keywords instead of brand name on G+ to rank for local terms.
I noticed something this morning, when performing a search on Google UK for "Intensive driving courses southend" the first position is awarded to a driving school that is using exact match keywords instead of brand name on their G+ page to rank for local terms. See this for yourself here: https://www.google.co.uk/#q=intensive+driving+courses+southend Until then, my site had held position 1 for this term for well over a year. Every gut instinct I have tells me that this will not work forever and its not something I should implement, however I'm interested to hear if anyone else is using this tactic, and how its working for them? How can I compete with this "grey hat" tactic?
Branding | | Silkstream0 -
When a PPC campaign is instituted what happens to non-branded organic search traffic ?
when a PPC campaign is instituted what happens to non-branded organic search traffic ?
Branding | | Archers0 -
Using Alt Text in stock photography good?
Hello, I got a client who told me that he bought his images from a stock photography website. I know it looks awful and all, but the client can't afford a photographer to get some decent pics. So, How positive it is to use Alt Text on images that aren't yours? The purpose of using alt text properly is to get traffic from an imaged based search right? So if the business shows up with some stock photography it looks kinda bad. Is it worth optimizing images in this case? Or just leave em without optimizing? Changing pics isn't an option. Thanks
Branding | | Eblan0 -
Search volumes in YouTube
Hello fellow Mozzers! I just wondered if there was any way of finding out what terms / videos people are searching YouTube for in the same way as getting rough traffic numbers using the AdWords Keyword Suggestion tool? Or even a trends-type tool to give rough indicators as to which terms are currently more popular than others. And what people's opinions are on whether to go after terms that people are frequently putting into YouTube, or terms that are popular in general and hope your video appears in the universal search? Cheers guys, Nick.
Branding | | themegroup0