Does Good SEO Help My Pay Per Click?

Google has always said that paid search and free listings are separate from each other, and what you do on one has no bearing on the other. That may have changed, as we explain. As part of Google’s obsession with search quality, Google does not allow ads from sites that do not meet its “editorial guidelines”. In the past, that meant that your ads needed to look and sound normal, and not have spammy content or overhyped marketing pitches. Now, Google includes your site in their consideration of an advertiseer’s quality. If a site is considered to have spammy content or is not well structured from an SEO standpoint, they will punish the advertiser by requiring a super high minimum bid, which is otherwise referred to as a “Google Slap”. This way,  they ensure that searchers have a “quality experience” both while looking through the ads while on Google, as

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Higher Bids = More Profits?

Does bidding more on good keyword terms boost your profits? The answer is, well – it depends. According to studies by Google and others (PDF link), the position your ad appears on the page of search engine results does not materially affect your conversion rate. So in the hypothetical example below, assuming the conversion rate is 10%, and a $10 Average Order Value, this would be the result of increasing your bid:

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How Long Does it Take a New Site to Rank in Google?

The inevitable question asked by every client (and just about anyone we meet on the street) is: “How long will it take for my site to start getting free visibility in the search engines like Google and Yahoo?” Every SEO has their own answer to this question. On a brand new site, it will come to considering the strength of the competition vs. the number (and value) of inbound links to your site. We have seen sites rank for fairly valuable keywords in a matter of 3 days, and we have also waited months for other sites to start ranking regularly on desired keywords. Aaron Wall has a great article on his blog about this subject. Matt Cutts answered a video question about this very topic.

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