re[2]: FN-FORUM search engines

date posted 28th January 2002 12:37

>> Ah, but, the trick is doing it without PPC.

>> If you are in a top competitive market place then aim at the more obscure
>> words / phrases and save yourself a mint and many headaches, unless of
>> course you are on a branding / market awareness exercise

I agree to an extent; however, the market is clearly moving towards PPC more & more quickly, so it will become ever rarer to get top 3, then top 5, then top 10 by traditional optimisation alone, as the marketplace gets more & more crowded.

When you think that the difference in traffic from positions 1 & 2 is often as much as 40%, and 1 & 5 frequently 300%, it puts this in context.

Increasingly, your point about finding niche markets is applying more & more to the PPC market itself anyway, as the really obvious terms get bid into the stratosphere. Plus these visitors can be better targeted anyway - think of the difference in conversion rates between "holiday" and "buy holiday in cyprus online".

In either case, the real trick is to do your homework to find the search terms which will provide the right levels of targeted traffic, where competition is still relatively low. This takes a bit of work & experience, as obviously some phrases are so niche as to bring you hardly any traffic at all while others are so generic as to bring you into high-level competition.

This research is usually where I find myself adding value to my clients' campaigns. It's also the reason that most of my clients have previously tried promoting themselves and then come to an agency.

Just my 2p

David.

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