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Online Marketing Manager at Park Retail Ltd
19 July 2011 10:45am
Hi.
This one is really an observation from my results and i was wondering if any other websites are seeing the same trends.
I've noticed that YOY the % growth for SEO visits overall is dropping and has been for some months, which when analysed further is true for almost all "keyword categories" we segment.
PPC visits overall and within our categories are picking up most of this shortfall, but the upshot is that our promo spend will increase.
Interested to see if others have experienced this trend - our traffic is still increasing (rankings have been steady), but there's a definite switch taking place between SEO & PPC growth.
Neil
CEO at Econsultancy
20 July 2011 08:55am
Hi Neil
Our own experience is pretty much the opposite. Obviously you can grow choose to grow or shrink your PPC traffic by spending more or less. But SEO continues to grow for us, albeit not massively. The greatest relative growth area for us, not surprisingly, has been from social media sites, particularly Twitter. Often, though, these referrals show up as 'Direct Traffic'.
Social media guy at CSC
20 July 2011 11:14am
I agree with Ashley, the opposite is true for my sites as well. Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and forums referrals are over-taking some of our 'traditional' referral sources.
It may be that you've cornered the market on PPC for your particular niche and are facing more competition on SEO? Would need to dig into the stats to uncover why this is happening...but could be interesting.
If you don't already use it, try the free trial of http://www.keywordspy.com/ to see how your adwords campaigns compare to competitors.
Online Marketing Manager at Park Retail Ltd
20 July 2011 11:38am
Thanks for the responses guys.
I didn't include Social within SEO/Direct and was comparing some specific non-brand keywords by SEO/PPC source.
The pattern when comparing many volume keywords shows a shift in % growth from SEO to PPC where we have maintained SEO position and a constant presence in top 1/2 positions in PPC.
Yes, i agree that sites will see an increased performance in SEO traffic when including Social Media, but i wonder whether there is an underlying trend being hidden away.
Maybe try this approach with a couple of your non brand keywords where you rank highly enough and compare YOY % traffic growth between SEO & PPC? - be interesting to see the results......thanks Neil
Social media guy at CSC
20 July 2011 12:08pm
Stats suggest that ad click through rate is rising...which would seem to support what you're observing when you maintain position for keywords.
The question is...if you are top prominence for SEO and PPC on the same keyword...are you paying for no reason?
(e.g. 'xmas savings' lists Park top sponsored and top natural)