Mitch 's Blog

As all of you know, I spend my days running two companies.  Tropical Realty of Suntree is my Real Estate company where I test all my programs I develop.  The eHomes Realty Network is where I share all my successful programs (and save you money and time from trying wasteful tests to see what works).  I have done pretty much every form of Internet marketing from PPC to buying leads to banner advertising, text link advertising, affiliate marketing, shared linking programs, cobranding, blogging, SEO and so on.

One topic that always comes up with most of my members is whether to do PPC or SEO.  There are pros and cons to both of them.

Pay Per Click

Benefits

• Pay only when someone clicks through to your site
• Target your marketing precisely where you desire
• Start today and create leads today - Instant results
• Cap your budget to spend as little or as much as you can afford
• Link directly to capture pages to increase lead capture
• Third Party Traffic such as Homegain can increase conversion rates to 16+%
• Predictable

Negatives

• Can get expensive if you don't know what you are doing (don't cap costs)
• If you don't have proper lead capture tools you are wasting money
• Lead Capture is around 8% - 10% through Google and Yahoo Search Engines
• Must manage keywords regularly to maximize production

SEO

Benefits

• FREE if you can do this yourself
• Targeted traffic based on keywords
• Some say consumers are more likely to click on these than PPC listings

Negatives

• Can be very expensive if you have to hire someone (many companies are rip offs)
• Rankings constantly change
• Can take a long time to get results
• Unpredictable

Of course I'm sure many of you are going to come up with many other positives and negatives for both.  I was just giving you my quick, very quick, thoughts on pros and cons of each program.

Over the past 7 years I have spent over $500,000 on Pay Per Click advertising.  I am not a tech guy and don't know how to do SEO myself.  Personally, I just don't have the mind to deal with it.  I'm sure it's not to hard if you learn, but I would rather pay someone.  I use a guy named Eric Blackwell to do my SEO.  I hired him about 3 months ago and he has done a great job getting not only my home page listed in many keywords, but also many of my landing pages listed high.  We haven't seen a benefit from it yet, but I have made a commitment to test it properly.  I have talked with many people who generate all their leads through SEO. 

With all that said, even if my SEO campaign is successful, I would never give up my PPC.  Here is the main reason.  It's predictable.  I know that if I spend X amount on PPC, it will generate Y amount of leads.  Using our 100MPH Marketing system will produce Z amount of sales.  The past two years, including this year, I have been able to predict my business...even in this market.  

Another reason to use PPC, is it's immediate.   Changes can be made pretty close to real time.  This means that I can make a change right now, and usually within a few seconds to a few minutes, I can test different programs and landing pages.  Unlike SEO that takes many months to acheive placement that will actually generate enough leads, PPC can be started today and you will start receiving leads today.  This will depend on your capture tools of course.

So which is better?  I'm a PPC man and most likely will always be a PPC man.  However, you can't argue the lead flow of some of the people I have met who use SEO.  I think in the end, a good balance of both is great.  You shoud use PPC to generate traffic and leads today while you are building your SEO program for later.  At some point you may be able to stop using PPC if you are one of the lucky Agents to top the search engines with top used keywords. 

One thing I do want to mention before you spend a lot of money on PPC.  I used to spend a small fortune on PPC per month and manage my 500 keywords daily for an hour or two.  In August of 2006, I discovered Homegain's BuyerLink program.  I have to admit, it changed the way I do business.  I went from averaging an 8% conversion rate of clicks to leads to a 16% click to lead conversion rate using Homegain.  So I doubled my conversion.  Just as importantly though, I pay half of what I paid on Google and Yahoo.  Without sounding like a sales person for Homegain, Conversion is double and costs are half.  I'm not sure why anyone would use Google and Yahoo for their PPC when you can use Homegains BuyerLink program.  (My members at The eHomes Realty Network receive a 5% discount on buying traffic from Homegain).

I hope this gives you a little insight onto whether you should use PPC or SEO or maybe both! Remember, before you start any program, you need to have a solid lead conversion plan in place.  The better your plan, the better your cost per sale.   As always, if you have any questions, feel free to contact me.  I'm always available to help.