Aaron Wall - Why I Love SEO
Aaron Wall of the SEO Book blog wrote a great rant about PPC vs. SEO. He talks about how PPC (paid per click advertising) is a continual race to the top - eroding profits and starting bidding wars. Who wins? Search engines. Remember that Google makes 99% of their $16 billion revenue on advertising.
Both methods have some barrier to entry, because they’re both technical and take a certain amount of skill. SEO (search engine optimization) on the other hand is more difficult to copy. SEO is sustainable.
You start a client on blogging or an SEO strategy and they get nervous about how much time and/or money it costs and they stop. If they continued they’d see that it’s a worthwhile investment. The links don’t disappear after your budget does. However, it’s not a straight line to profit like PPC can be. It takes a slower, less direct path.SEO shows a work ethic and builds credibility. It separates the legit long-term businesses from the get-rich-quick schemers:
This is why I like SEO so much more than PPC. Most people are too lazy to spend years researching their topic, years building a brand, years building links, and years building social and customer relationships. We are afraid of failure, afraid of success, and afraid that we are investing too much in one place. But, if someone sees me ranking in the organic results they can’t just clone it unless they know SEO well, and are committed for the long haul. In many cases, knowing SEO well means having capital, time, passion, and a lot of marketing knowledge.
Then he wrote about how if you do well, it’s easy for someone (or your ad network) to steal or copy you. Aaron had this happen - someone stole his ad copy - and here’s his response:
SEO separates out real businesses from 95% of the people buying PPC ads. The guy stealing ad copy is too lazy to compete at that level. I’ll enjoy the logarithmic growth in profits (which have been at least doubling every year) while he keeps stealing table-scraps from Google and other affiliates until his accounts get banned.
This is why successful internet marketers who are the real deal start to give away their secrets. After they’ve built their business, they can afford to tell people how to do what they do. They know most people won’t have the skills or work ethic to get where they are. Some do, but it’s a small percentage.
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6 Responses to “Aaron Wall - Why I Love SEO”
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February 20th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
I for one am SEO all the way, I think PPC has it’s place and is great to complement a internet marketing; but I think most people trust organic results over the PPC ads anyway. Thanks for the great analysis! Sphunn!
http://sphinn.com/story/29928
February 20th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Excellent post!
Search engine optimization is definitely the way to go for the long haul…and a few of my clients have been afraid to really tap into this due to budget issues and the big question mark — “How long will this take?” Explaining the long term benefits is crucial.
Thanks for your insight!
February 20th, 2008 at 3:12 pm
Good points for both PPC and SEO. The quick payoff you can get from PPC is one reason people go that route. Since time is money the more time spend making something SEO friendly people opt to go the PPC route.
A good example of SEO is http://midtownlunch.com/ , he had a few ads, but he SEO method target the product directly to the vendor. In this case the restraints that are giving him some scratch.
Thanks.
February 22nd, 2008 at 7:19 am
Great post Janet! Without a doubt PPC has its place in the marketing world. It’s really not SEM versus PPC, rather the two are a hard one-two punch that will most often bring you the success you desire.
I think Aaron’s underline message was that PPC alone makes for partial marketing. You are leaving serious $$$ on the table if you don’t put just as much focus on all the other major elements of Internet marketing.
Again, thanks Janet for the post. It’s nice to have you back, even if it meant losing you =). ~Paul
February 22nd, 2008 at 9:15 am
When looking at what gets created, I think paid advertising has a potential to do more for the internet community than SEO. SEO produces ream, upon ream, upon ream of tripe. Paid advertising has the potential to fund contant created for the sake of quality content.
February 23rd, 2008 at 4:27 pm
Nice post! I believe SEO is the way to go without a doubt. It takes a long time and a lot of hard work for a website to become listed in the search engines for competitive keywords however it is all worth it in the end. At the end of the day, free target traffic is an Internet Marketers dream!