Will the increased adoption of personalized search and the advent of Google universal search make the lives of search marketers more difficult? It certainly has the potential as more video, maps and other features begin to show up in the SERPs and push more “traditional” results off the first page. I could go into how this will broaden the types of content that will need to be optimized for search but I’ll focus instead on the potential impact on PPC and leave that for a later post.

How can you make sure your message is seen as more individuals begin to see personalized results and Google’s other products begin to show within search results? The simple answer is through PPC. If you no longer know where organic results will show and don’t have the content assets or resources to optimize content throughout all of Google’s vertical search products then turning to PPC as a permanent solution may become very attractive. In an ideal world you would try and take up as much real estate as possible by having excellent organic and paid listings and in turn decrease the visibility of your competition. As a recent iCrossings report shows, this tactic also has a very positive effect on all metrics from clicks, to average page views, to orders. If, however, searchers begin to adopt personalized search and you no longer know where your pages are ranking organically then paid search is going to become a more crucial piece of search marketing. With PPC costs already steadily increasing the potential impact of personalized and universal search could make the lives of PPC managers more difficult. Meeting the ROI goals or other success metrics of a client will become increasingly more difficult and unless you’re on top of your game you may end up with some very unhappy clients. As more advertisers turn to PPC to help counter the unknowns of organic SERP’s in a personal and universal search world the costs will inevitably spike. This will force PPC managers to take a closer look at the strategy they employ for each client.

Separating out keywords into branding and direct response buckets is a start. In order to remain as visible as possible it will be important to have your ads shown in top positions when searchers are in the research phase. This will hopefully allow your client to be placed into the searchers consideration set resulting in your client’s brand being top of mind when the searcher is ready to buy and are searching on more targeted direct response keywords. Being wise about how you bid on your keywords and the results you expect from your various keyword groups will ultimately determine the effectiveness of the strategy you deploy.

A second vital aspect will be the creation of exceptional ads that catch a searchers eye and draw them in without promising more then can be delivered. Constant testing will be even more imperative in order to stay ahead of your competition. The same holds true for landing pages. Getting a searcher to click on the ad is only half the battle. If you don’t have a landing page that will benefit your quality score while also being exceptionally efficient at moving the searcher along the conversion process then you’re letting a lot of your money be washed down the drain. With the multitude of landing page testing options out there, some of which are free, there is no reason not to be testing on a regular basis. The impact that doubling your conversion rate will have on your ROI is incredible and you won’t be spending a penny more on PPC to get those results. As costs rise it is by far the best option to counter the increasing costs you’ll be paying for each click.

In conclusion the best way to counter the inevitable rise of PPC costs as a result of the further adoption of personalized search and the recent deployment of Google universal search is to bid wisely and test, test and test some more.

Filed under: PPC on Wednesday, June 13th, 2007 by Nate Linnell |
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