PPC 'guarantees success in SERPs'

14:00 30th April 2010

Digital marketing professionals have been advised that pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a sure-fire way to ensure a website is listed in search engine results pages (SERPs).

According to Jason Tabeling, director of search and media at Rosetta, there are no guarantees with organic campaigns such as search engine optimisation (SEO), but paid search ensures placement in SERPs.

He explained in an article for Search Engine Watch that although some search engine users will never click on the paid search results, others will ignore the organic search results further down the page and always just click on the top result.

Mr Tabeling added that if businesses do not take advantage of PPC, they are at risk of rival companies paying for the keyword and ranking above them in SERPs, thus potentially increasing their client base and taking possible customers away.

He said: "You may think that your years of hard work created a person searching for this term, and without your product or brand advertising there is no market for this affiliate or competitor to gather traffic."

However, he pointed out that search engines do not work like that.

Mr Tabeling's comments come after search expert Matt Lawson told Search Engine Land that paid search and social media are becoming more similar, with each marketing tactic influencing the other.