What is Paid Placement?

One of the interesting online marketing tactics is search marketing. The point is to try to position your site so that it shows up in related searches on the search engine. Some of this can be done organically, as you carefully use keywords and metadata to optimize your web site for search. Unfortunately, no matter how you optimize your web site, sometimes it just isn’t enough to rank as high as you would like to when search engine results are returned.

In such cases, you can also use what is known as “paid placement” to augment your efforts. You can pay to appear at the top of search results so that your business is the first thing potential customers see when they search for a specific term.

How does Paid Placement Work?

When search engines return results, the order that they appear on the page is the result of an algorithm. This algorithm considers a number of factors including relevance, authority, and how many others visit the site. If a web site is deemed a better “match” for the search term, it will appear higher on the search engine list.

The higher a web site or web page appears on the results page, the more likely it is to be clicked. Paid placement takes some of the guesswork out of where your site will rank on the page. You pay a certain amount of money for a very specific search term. Then, when the results appear, your web page will appear as the first, second or third item on the page. This boosts your visibility almost immediately.

However, it is important to realize that paid placement is something that is obvious to searchers. In Google, for example, the top three results are actually encased in a differently-colored box. This indicates that they are paid placement results. However, even though consumers are aware of the nature of the links, many of them still click on them because they are highly visible, and usually quite relevant. There are also usually paid ads off to the side of the main search results as well.

Paying for Ad Placement

What you pay for paid placement depends largely on the terms you use. More popular search terms cost more with paid placement. You can use variations of popular searches, and get quotes on what those would cost.

Sometimes, changing a word in the search phrase can reduce the cost a little bit. However, you might not get as many eyes on your link because the search just isn’t as popular.

You also have to be aware of Google’s relatively new Quality Score. Google will look at the relevance of your keyword as it relates to the text of your ad, as well as the query submitted by the potential customer. If you have a high Quality Score, your ad will place higher – and the cost of the ad will drop. You often pay for ads by the number of clicks you receive. The better your keyword quality and ad text relevance, the more first page bids you will receive, and the more traffic you are likely to draw.

With a little thought, it is possible to target two or three search phrases (try to stay away from single words for best results) that are highly relevant to your site. Use these for paid placement, and consider more organic means for other search terms ranking.