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Paid Search Beats SEO Conversion Rates?
ShareThis
In a statement that will surely have SEO's up in virtual arms,
WebSideStory, a provider of digital
marketing and analytics solutions, today announced the results of a study
that shows paid search has a nine percent edge in conversion rates over organic
search. I can hear the furious typing of a million outraged SEO bloggers at this
very minute.
Via the news release, "In a study of leading business-to-consumer (B2C)
e-commerce sites during the first eight months of this year, paid search --
keywords bought on a pay-per-click basis at search engines such as Google, Yahoo
and MSN -- had a median order conversion rate of 3.40 percent at
business-to-consumer e-commerce sites using the company's award-winning HBX
Analytics technology. This compared to a conversion rate of 3.13 percent for
organic search results, defined as non-paid or natural search engine listings,
during the same January-to-August timeframe, according to the WebSideStory
Index, a compilation of e-commerce, site search and global Internet user trends.
The study analyzed more than 57 million search engine visits. Order conversions
occurred during the same session.
"For both paid and organic search, you have highly
qualified traffic that converts far above the overall conversion rate of about 2
percent for most e-commerce sites," said Ali Behnam, Senior Digital
Marketing Consultant for WebSideStory. "In the case of paid search, marketers
have better control over the environment, including the message, the landing
page and the ability to eliminate low-converting keywords."