Forget SEO! Now buy Position 1 on page 1

[deepsand]

Certainly. But do any of the elite use PPC only, and not even try for organic listing by SEO?

Setting aside the issue of who here are/are not among the elite, yes.

There are market sectors where the organic SERPs cannot be well differentiated between those providing information and those selling a good/service.

In such cases, the PPC ROI can quite easily be vastly superior to the organic for those engaged in sales.

[deepsand]

As far as putting the ads in the middle of the searches, that's trickery, and people don't like to be tricked.

If it is clearly labeled, it is not trickery.

At least with Google, people are aware that the first couple results are ads.

Only because of the labelling.

And I don't think they get very many clicks.

I can personally attest to the contrary, as can others on this forum.

Shoppers and information seekers are different creatures; and, for the former, PPC listings are generally the more relevant.

[Sweet Tooth #3]

If it is clearly labeled, it is not trickery.

Define clearly labeled. If they wanted people to see the little "ad" label, then they would have put it on the top or on the left side. It's been proven by heat map research that the eyes don't generally drift off to the right. I've used this research to improve CTR on my sites.

I hate to ask you to speculate, but why do you think they're testing them half way down the page.

Only because of the labelling.

That's true in the beginning, but after awhile I believe it's more of a subconscious thing. I don't even see them anymore, but I do check out other types of ads.

I can personally attest to the contrary, as can others on this forum.

Shoppers and information seekers are different creatures; and, for the former, PPC listings are generally the more relevant.

Did Google tell you this, or do people just get lower click rates from shopping terms? This is interesting because I have both of these kind of visitors. I have a page that ranks for "buy (product name)," it's in the 3rd spot on G and gets an 18% click through rate from serps, that's not too bad. It usually has 2 ads above it.

I'm obsessive about my meta-descriptions and title tags, and it's not too hard to grab someones attention, but this could be different in other niches.

I'm willing to bet that Bing doesn't go ahead with this. I could be wrong though...

[deepsand]

Define clearly labeled. If they wanted people to see the little "ad" label, then they would have put it on the top or on the left side.

In that case, presumably you find Google equally at fault.

It's been proven by heat map research that the eyes don't generally drift off to the right.

The eye/brain scanning mechanism always moves the eye horizontally in the direction culturally learned. When and where such scanning is interrupted is wholly dependent on the presence/absence of physical cues on the row being scanned.

Said "heat maps" are thus valid only for the particular physical layout tested. This is something that old-time typesetters know/knew well, but has been forgotten or never learned by the majority of on-line publishers, and some current magazine publishers as well. (Wired immediately comes to mind.)

I hate to ask you to speculate, but why do you think they're testing them half way down the page.

Probably because they've not previously tested it. How else to know what the results may be?

That's true in the beginning, but after awhile I believe it's more of a subconscious thing. I don't even see them anymore, but I do check out other types of ads.

For a particular physical layout, that would not be unusual, just as is the case for other visual/audible environs.

Did Google tell you this, or do people just get lower click rates from shopping terms?

Elementary deduction, borne out by observations.

• Determining a user's intent from a few words used in a non-Boolean search is generally next to impossible, such that mixing of informational and sales oriented results is inevitable;
• The rational person will only pay for an ad if it holds the reasonable possibility of bringing a benefit equal to or greater than its cost;
• Thus, ad listings will be overwhelmingly used by those engaged in selling a good or service that is highly relevant to the query string in question;
• Just as is the case for other forms of ad publication, the viewer understands the above, such that the user who is shopping knows that the ads presented are highly likely to be quite relevant to his intent.

Aside from my years of personal observations, empirical data show that the click-through-rate for organic listings falls off at a greater rate with depth of listing than is the case for PPC listings. I.e., shoppers explore the PPC listings more deeply than do all plumb the depths of organic listings.

I'm obsessive about my meta-descriptions and title tags, and it's not too hard to grab someones attention, but this could be different in other niches.

You do know, do you not, that the descriptive snippet displayed in the SERPs is dynamically generated, based on the specific query string at hand, and is known to derive from at least 9 different sources.

[C0ldf1re]

...
Aside from my years of personal observations, empirical data show that the click-through-rate for organic listings falls off at a greater rate with depth of listing than is the case for PPC listings. I.e., shoppers explore the PPC listings more deeply than do all plumb the depths of organic listings.
...

My take on that is that buyers, as opposed to browsers, will spend more time doing price/specification comparisons. Do you agree with that interpretation?

[deepsand]

My take on that is that buyers, as opposed to browsers, will spend more time doing price/specification comparisons. Do you agree with that interpretation?

Correct. On-line buyers follow the same patterns as do the brick-and-mortar shoppers.

The primary difference is one of degree, rather than kind, in that the on-line shopper can evaluate more potential sources, and collect more information, in a given amount of time than can the one on the ground.

To accomodate this typical shopping pattern, PPC conversion cookies generally have a 30 day life span.

[Sweet Tooth #3]

Excellent points. As this pertains to our different opinions and experiences, I can see how we could come to seperate conclusions. I think the above observations I mentioned may only apply to certain niches. For example, if I was in the "buy shoes online" niche, I would have no idea what to wright that would entice somebody to click.

You could write....SALE....50% OFF....LARGEST SELECTION....BUY 1 GET 1 FREE, but you still wouldn't have anything that set you apart from the rest.

However, I'm very fortunate to be in a niche that I understand deeply-not just the products, but the reason they're typing it into Google, and what people are feeling and going through.

I intentionally only target 1 search phrase per page just so I can optimize the meta description for that 1 phrase. I could add 1 more word to the title tag and easily rank the page for another keyphrase that has as much volume as the first. But the CTR on these types of pages are lower. The specific title tag is also a huge factor.

You do know, do you not, that the descriptive snippet displayed in the SERPs is dynamically generated, based on the specific query string at hand, and is known to derive from at least 9 different sources.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Whenever I check, the only time my meta descriptions don't come up in Google (or Yahoo and Bing) is when a page comes up for a longer tail string that I wasn't targeting anyway. I consider this bonus traffic. If I took down my meta descriptions, I'm fairly sure 50% of my traffic would disappear overnight.

If I type a search phrase into Google, and that phrase makes my meta description come up, doesn't this mean that the same thing would happen for anyone searching the same phrase through Google US?

[deepsand]

Excellent points. As this pertains to our different opinions and experiences, I can see how we could come to seperate conclusions. I think the above observations I mentioned may only apply to certain niches.

That there are indeed differences between different subject matters was addressed in my above post in which I stated

There are market sectors where the organic SERPs cannot be well differentiated between those providing information and those selling a good/service.

In such cases, the PPC ROI can quite easily be vastly superior to the organic for those engaged in sales.

For example, if I was in the "buy shoes online" niche, ...

Well, there at least one has the advantage of reasonably expecting the organic SERPs to not include purely information pages, owing to the presence of the word "buy" in the query string.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. Whenever I check, the only time my meta descriptions don't come up in Google (or Yahoo and Bing) is when a page comes up for a longer tail string that I wasn't targeting anyway. I consider this bonus traffic. If I took down my meta descriptions, I'm fairly sure 50% of my traffic would disappear overnight.

If you refer to a loss attributable to a loss of SERP rank, I doubt that that would be the case. Just as Google long ago ceased using <meta keywords> for ranking purposes, owing to excessive keyword stuffing, supposedly so too the case for <meta description.>

If you instead refer to the impression given viewers, I would suppose that that would depend on what text Google would otherwise select to be used for the descriptive snippet.

If I type a search phrase into Google, and that phrase makes my meta description come up, doesn't this mean that the same thing would happen for anyone searching the same phrase through Google US?

Were Google's search function wholly user agnostic, were it Google TLD agnostic, and were all of its 40+ Data Centers perfectly synchronized, that would be a reasonable expectation. That, however, is not universally the case.

[Sweet Tooth #3]

So are you saying that meta descriptions don't affect click through rate? If that's so you couldn't be more wrong. It blows my mind how may of my competitors don't optimize their meta descriptions.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they don't do it. I'll take that traffic, it just really surprises me.

[deepsand]

So are you saying that meta descriptions don't affect click through rate?

Did you miss the following?

If you instead refer to the impression given viewers, I would suppose that that would depend on what text Google would otherwise select to be used for the descriptive snippet.