To PPC or
SEO for a Successful Affiliate Marketing
Campaign?
Click to choose your favorite networking site
by Ryan Jones
As affiliates trying to make a living, it's
hard to not put your time and energy into
those products and services that stand to
convert the best and make the most money. This
is especially true when we're talking about
products and services that do not necessarily
meet your own standards, whether environmental
standards or just straight up morals.
To PPC or to Search?
In today's world of online affiliate
marketing, both (Pay Per Click) PPC and
natural search, aka SEO, are two effective
ways of generating traffic to your website.
And not just any traffic - targeted
traffic. Getting people to visit your site is
one thing. Turning that traffic into money
generating clicks is another matter. While one
may work better than the other, depending on
each affiliate's budget and skillsets, the
best operandi modi is to master both.
Of course, there is no rule that says you
can only do one or the other. Above all else,
just be sure that you do it right. Designing a
strategic game plan, whether it's a PPC
campaign or SEO campaign, may require more
time put into the project, however, said time
will pay for itself (and then some) if it is
thoughtfully planned from the ground up.
One of the advantages of good SEO is that
once desired rankings are achieved, ROI
drastically rises. While SEO should be a
steady practice, most of the hard work is in
the beginning. PPC, on the other hand, comes
with a higher risk, and will always cost
something for every click. This is why it's
utterly important to choose your bidding terms
carefully and give your campaign daily
spending cutoffs.
Either way you look at it, both types of
campaigns take time and money. If you have
more time than money, it is probably within
your best interests to put more energy into
SEO. There is plenty of free information and
tutorials floating across the Web. Do your
research and take the time to study up. If you
have a large operating budget and currently
are lacking in SEO, taking on a PPC campaign
is certainly a viable outlet to generate
revenue.
For the eco affiliate, there are many niche
keywords that can be ranked for with just a
little bit of SEO - namely some good content
and couple of good links. In other words, it
doesn't make sense using PPC bidding to go
after keywords with just a few hundred search
cues per month. Even the most basic SEO can
get ranking for non-competitive, niche terms
in just a couple of months. However, the more
competitive terms with good conversion rates
require a bit more SEO and a bit more
patience. This is where a good PPC campaign
can achieve positive results.
With an increasing number of marketers
doing SEO, and the knowledge of which to do so
being more readily accessible (nothing at all
like it was in the late nineties), PPC may
very well be the future of affiliate
marketing. It certainly isn't going anywhere,
and certainly has the potential of giving the
little guy more of a leg up.
In summary, putting all your stock into
either PPC or SEO is death to the affiliate
marketer. Start learning both now,
and whether or not you are dependent on one
more than another at any given time, be sure
your overall game plan includes both PPC and
SEO in the equation.
Back to
Green
Affiliate Marketing Articles
