Using PPC in informational searches

[scienceisrad]

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?

[scienceisrad]

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!

[Alick300]

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

[EGOL]

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.

[scienceisrad]

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.

[EGOL]

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..

[Linda-Vassily]

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.