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
-
Why not just use an alias if the only change is a different domain Name?
We are rebranding our store with a new name. We have purchased a NewDomainName. Can I just make the "Old Domain Name" an alias for the "NewDomainName"? The site will not change in any other way than having a new logo. This is an e-commerce site with over 100 categories of artisan made products. So once we move the site, the old domain will be empty. Thank you Stephen
Branding | | stephenfishman1 -
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 -
Use of Keywords throughout articles
Hi everyone, I have another (very basic) question! It's about the use of keywords throughout articles - is it worthwhile putting keywords and associated phrases in bold and italic and also underlining them at various points throughout my website articles? I have read that this helps google to know what the article is about. Any comments would be much appreciated!
Branding | | ClareO0 -
Facebook page not appearing in search results
Could anyone give a reason as to why a facebook page wouldn't be appearing in search results? - I've setup numerous facebook Pages for businesses and they usually get indexed and start appearing in the SERPs for their respective name/brand name relatively quickly, but have a Page for a business (which has even been quite active recently) and it's nowhere to be seen in Google's results (not even on a search for the complete URL). Any thoughts appreciated, thanks. Greg
Branding | | GregDixson0 -
Brand Search Results- how do you make sure spammy links don't hurt your brand
We are seeing a spammer start ranking #4 for our branded search result on google. This could potentially be hurting our brand. Any suggestions that have worked for you recently? For more context we already have: Create Social profiles (Linkedin, G+, FB etc) which are engaged and frequently updated Analyzed Domain Authority, Links and recency of the spammy article. The domain and the page authority seems weak, and the spammy article is dated Dec of last year Looked at various posts on http://moz.com/community/q/reputation-management. Thanks in advance!
Branding | | SEMEnthusiast0 -
Any reason not to use rel=author?
Hi Like everyone I've read a lot about rel=author but is there a reason not to use it? For instance, if you're running the content, as I am, for a travel company, we have individual writers writing the content and guides to cities/hotels/tours etc, but none of our competitors are using rel=auithor, so we certainly do stand out. But does the "personal" touch of rel=author dilute trust in some cases? For instance, if you're booking a specific hotel in London and you type in the hotel name looking for the best rate, do you really want to see a face you don't know beside a "corporate result"? Is anyone in an industry where rel=author is being used in conjunction with products/product reviews. It will work for Gary V and wine, but will it work everywhere? Rel=author is touted everywhere as a sure fire bet... but are there times to back off from using it?
Branding | | xoffie1 -
Use blog.domain.com or socialbrand.com?
I've got a little bit of a dilemma. A company I'm working for has an ecommerce site that is moving to Volusion. It is impossible to add "domain.com/blog" so I am forced to use a subdomain in order to keep consistency. We are starting a push in Social media and have secured shorter handles for the brand to use on the different networks. One of the main goals originally for developing a blog is to build trust but since the domain names are so big (26 characters) and the ecommerce sites already have a good amount of trust building factors in them I am beginning to question my original plan. My question is this: If I go with a shorter brand recognized domain name to develop the blog on which is different than the ecommerce domain (keyword matched) will I loose too much trust and ranking opportunity because of the difference in domains. I know there isn't a golden bullet for this question but i would love to get you your take on it.
Branding | | BenRWoodard0