Dec
06
2007
06
2007
Paid v. Organic Search Tool Launches
This week, we’re launching our Paid v. Organic Search and Fast Moving Search Terms. On top of an already massive set of search data on a site and industry level, we’re able to provide paid v. organic search breakdown for sites as well as for individual terms sending traffic to a site.
To show off this new service, I took a look at the top five sites for six industry categories and calculated an paid v. organic percentage for each category.
The paid v. organic range within these categories can be vast. That may be the result of successful site optimization (more organic) or underutilization of paid search. With this new valuable data, online marketers no longer have to rely on gut instinct in executing search marketing programs.
It would be nice to have some other reasons for the differences by industry. Could it have to do with how ‘hard’ the good are.
Surely the level of web penetration in a category is the main driver? The more dependent on the internet a category is for sales then the more competitive the organic search becomes, leading to greater investment in paid search by those who can’t make the first page of the SERPs?
Someone selling industrial machinery is less worried about search engine performance and therfore won’t invest in paid search, this results in the category having a much greater percentage of organic than paid search?
The industry breakdown is based on aesthetics and the expression of personal taste: people who are looking for things with a more emotional meaning are doing so without the advertising framework…think about it– doesn’t something about choosing the advertised flower website just feel less sincere?
I know you must be wondering: but what about appliances and health & beauty? Well culturally speaking, these are both places where someone has the option to express their personality, and the results demonstrate that people don’t want to conform to what’s advertised…oftentimes the brand of the merchant has as much to do with a click as the web description.
IMHO, I have found that sites that are advertised for more personal services are often the most obsessed with capital and don’t necessarily offer the nicest goods, or give any luxury to the experience of buying products (I don’t mean to come off as snooty here). To contextualize this in terms of real-world experience, It’s like McDonald’s vs. your favorite burger joint or the huge hollywood blockbuster vs. that independent release that really touched you. Adverters makes statements and people react and define their personal preferences against those statements and it must be acknowledged, as mentioned in Wisdom of the Crowds, that the making of a statement is often enough information to sway a group to make a decision, though not necessarily on the side of the statement.
Thoughts?