Google AdWords vs. Free Search Engine Rankings

A lot of people ask me about the merits of buying clicks on


search engines with AdWords, vs. getting free visitors with

what's called "search engine optimization" - loading up your web

pages with strategic keywords so you can get ranked #10 or

#3 or #1 on Google's free search.



Well at first glance free is certainly better than paid, but

there are some big IF's that you need to consider first!



Remember: you can only optimize a website for maybe ten

words and phrases - not hundreds - so you should choose

very, very carefully.



But the most important thing is choosing the RIGHT

words and phrases to optimize for.



Now here's the kicker:



If you don't use a pay per click strategy to determine which

words and phrases actually attract paying customers first, you will

almost always choose the wrong keywords. The words you

initially think you want are almost always different than the ones

that actually work - believe me, I've made that mistake many

times.



Considering it takes 30 days to several months to see

results when you're playing the search engine optimization

game, you CANNOT afford to target the wrong keywords.



When you do pay per click campaigns properly, you'll

see that there are almost always a few really productive words

and phrases that only 2-3 people are bidding on, instead

of 10 or 20 bidders. What that means is that those people are

not optimizing their websites for those same keywords either.



Well just like pay per click, search engine phrases have

varying degrees of competitiveness. If you want a #1

ranking for the phrase "Digital Camera" it's going to be

a LOT harder than getting a #1 ranking for "Kodak DX6340"

which is a popular digital camera. And the traffic will be

much more targeted, too. When you do search engine

optimization, you must pick battles you can win.



So here's the lesson: Use my Definitive Guide to Google

AdWords to properly set up a pay per click campaign,

determine which keywords are productive, THEN do

search engine optimization based on what really works.

Then you'll get all kinds of free traffic and even more

income from your website:

Jan Aalvink.

http://www.aalvink-marketing.nl/