At SES Chicago, there was an interesting session in which a group of search marketing professionals debated the issue of which is better between PPC and SEO. Participants included Dave Naylor, Chirstine Churchill, Michael Gray, and Karen Weber, and Rand Fishkin.

Churchill pointed to a study from Engine Ready on conversion rates by source of traffic (PPC vs organic). The study found:

- Conversion rates: PPC just barely beat SEO
- Average Order Value: Paid won
- Average time on site: Paid won

She gave the following as advantages of PPC:

- Gives immediate online presence
- Have a new site? Have ads in an hour
- Start getting ROI sooner
- No ramp up time
- Great for seasonal items or time sensitive promotions
- Great for testing
- Easily test effectiveness of new marketing message or site design change
- Quickly gather feedback
- Regulate traffic volume
- Sales pipeline empty? Use PPC to push traffic
- Overloaded? Pause campaigns or cut back spend
- Have limited sales season? Saturate market while demand is high

“PPC is very agile. It’s also has targeting advantages,” said Churchill.

For targeting, she says PPC provides opportunity for high visibility in multiple channels (search engines, content sites, mobile phones), expands results beyond search results, and gives you control over placement on SERPs and better control over landing page/message.

It’s often easier to sell PPC to management because the concept is similar to traditional advertising, and provides for direct accountability. It’s easy to track measures of success. It’s an effective way to drive qualified traffic to your site, and it allows you to expand your opportunities.

Weber says the top five reasons why “PPC rules,” are: speed, flexibility, it’s unlimited, it’s goal-driven, and it’s controllable. You can quickly manipulate keywords to those that drive conversions, you can quickly change bid prices, and you can quickly get in and out of the market. You can turn your campaign on and off, and change ad copy, keywords, etc. You can target a much wider range of keywords, adhere to a budget, and have an immediate impact on sales.

Fishkin pointed out that PPC gets 10% of clicks, but 90% of spend. He said SEO is more challenging and less controllable, but the spend is there and the fact that people click organic results.

Gray said he believes that PPC could make SEO better, but Google is banning people now, so it makes things more challenging. Naylor said he believes SEO is more “open.” Weber and Fishkin both said they would outsource PPC over SEO.

Gray said it’s important to get in the top during the early part of the research phase, especially since Google is personalizing results for everyone now. Churchill noted that Google’s personalization is a better argument for PPC. Like iEntry CEO Rich Ord recently noted, the addition of personalized results could “make people less reliant on organic search results for their traffic and in turn increase their use of Adwords.”

Another point was brought up as we recently discussed - that the search engines are pushing organic listings down with mixed media (blended, universal) results.

Certainly there are many advantages to both PPC and SEO, and they can compliment one another. Actually, a recent study from a couple of NYU Stern professors found that organic search engine results can play a direct role in whether or not a paid listing is clicked.

Sometimes called inbound links, backlinks are the lifeblood of Search Engine Positioning. Inorder for a website to be on the top of search engines like Google without the webmaster having to pay big money for advertising, the website has to have a large number of backlinks. Backlinks are links on one website that lead back to another website.

The more established, high quality, and high Page Rank the website that contains the link is, the more power it has to help the linked website with its search engine position. If the website that is getting backlinks gets many High Quality and High Page Rank backlinks, the better the chance it has of being in a high position on the Search Engines.

In order to get backlinks, many people suggest submitting articles, posting on forums, and making comments on blogs. These are all great ways to get backlinks. However, there are several myths about backlinks that many people believe are true and these myths affect their backlink campaigns and what they do in order to get great backlinks for their websites. Many people reject great backlinks because of these myths.

The first and most prevalent myth about backlinks is that having a link on an “inner page” which has a low or 0 Page Rank inside of a High PR domain will do you no good at all. This is a fallacy. Here is what a friend of mine told me that his friend, who works for Google, has to say about the issue:

I can’t say much without violating my NDC, but I can definitely say this: the PR of a site is always 0 at creation, but at the next PR update (which is supposed tohappen every 3 months, but we’re a bit behind right now), the PR of something like a comment page will usually update to some portion of the PR of the main site. So if you put your site in a link from a PR8 government site, it’ll look like PR 0 for a while, but when it updates to PR 3 or 4,it will become a much more powerful backlink. Of course, for extremely large sites, like example of  Warrior Forum, the PR of the main page is spread so thin that the comment page will still only have a PR 0 –but then, for sites that large and that popular, there are other factors at play that I can’t go into that still make the backlink strong even at PR 0.

When Google’s Matt Cutts was asked about this, he refused a direct answer because he said the question cut too close to Google’s algorithm:

Stephan Spencer: OK. So, I guess, a follow on to that would be: a .edu and .gov link, and so forth, has, typically, a more pristine link neighborhood, so it is not just about the

PageRank, right? The link neighborhood comes into play.

Matt Cutts: That is a little bit of a “secret sauce” question, so I am not going to go into how much we do trust that sort of stuff.

Stephan Spencer: OK. I am going to slap my wrist now. Ouch, ouch!

Matt Cutts: [laughing]

Another myth about backlinks is that you must have only “relevant” backlinks to your website or they won’t count. Nothing could be further from the truth. Sure, it’s good to have relevant links and Google recommends it, but links that are not “relevant” also count. The Drudge Report was put on the “map” the day he broke the news that President Clinton was having an…er, indiscretion with a young intern named Monica Lewinsky. Thousands (maybe even hundreds of thousands) of sites linked to him that day. Many of them were not in his “niche”.

The other day I challenged my friend soccer fan site that I could get him on Page One of Google for his keywords. He was at the bottom of Page 6. I did his links one night and then went to bed. The next day I got up and checked and he was number one in Google for all his keywords. Not one of the sites I added his link to was “relevant” for his fan site keywords or even soccer fan sites. Yet they still worked that well that fast. If you leave out great sites because they are not “relevant” to your niche, you are leaving a lot of potential money on the table.

Another myth that many marketers worry about with backlinks is that you will be penalized for “building your links too fast”. As far as being penalized if you build links too fast, you’d have to have hundreds of thousands of the same kind of links to have that happen.

“Natural Linkbuilding” happens every day. How many links do you think I’d get today if I posted some sort of breaking news about the new US President Barak Obama on my website? What if I knew something about his background that no one else knew?

I guarantee you, I’d get thousands. Back to The Drudge Report, this site was “put on the map” the day he broke the news that President Clinton was having the indiscretion with Monica Lewinsky. Not only did hundreds of thousands of other sites link back to him that day, but many of them were not in the same niche.

This is natural and expected by Google. What is not natural is building thousands and thousands of links all in the same niche in one day. Then, you might be penalized by Google. But unless you are doing that, you have nothing to worry about. Knowing that all of these are myths makes link building a whole lot easier and enjoyable for webmasters.

Google’s algorithm is set up to reward “natural” linkbuilding and if people stay away from any site because all they can get is an “inner page” backlink, or reject sites because they are not in the same niche, or build their backlinks super slowly to avoid “red flags”, then they are actually creating a situation in which they could actually attract more negative notice by Google than if they simply worked at building their backlinks by using great websites that are available to them.

High Converting Affiliate Review Sites

The big trend to create product review sites comes with no surprise given the high conversion rates that are possible with them. They’re the ultimate high converting affiliate site and you can easily build them using WordPress and free or paid Plugins.

The key it to make your review site look legitimate so that visitor’s see your site as trust worthy source of information. This is done with a combination of useful content and usergenerated reviews. The home page of your review site is usually the first impression of your site to most of your visitors. So make that first impression count by adding a comprehensive product comparison chart of the products you’re reviewing.

All the big authority review sites have them and your site should too. It adds value to your visitors and results in higher conversion rates. How do I create a product comparison chart in WordPress? Easy, I just create a custom HTML template that includes <table> tags using an HTML editor and I cut and paste the HTML into a WordPress page. Then I set that page as a static homepage within WordPress. There may be a better way of doing this using CSS but the HTML method works just as good.

I recommend reviewing at least 10 products per product line. The more products you review the more legitimate and trust worthy your site looks. They don’t all have to be affiliate products either.

The best approach for writing your own product reviews is to use “the reporter angle” and simply provide unbiased information about the product such as features, benefits, price, and anything else that may be useful to your visitors.It may take some research to compile all the needed information for the product reviews but you can take some shortcuts by compiling information and summarizing it in your own words from other reviews of the product found online. If writing isn’t your forte then you can always outsource this task to a writer.

For an added touch of “social proof” you can get visitors to leave their feedback or reviews under each of your product reviews. WordPress already has built in user comment functionality so all you have to do is spark off the conversation by adding a call to action that prompts your visitors to leave a comment. Say something like:

“Did you find this review helpful? Tell us what you thought of this product”

You’d be amazed at how many people will actually leave feedback once your site starts generating traffic and gaining momentum. Remember, you don’t have to re-invent the wheel. Just find what’s working for other top review sites and model their format. They’ve already done most the hard work for you.

The Surefire SEO Launch Formula

Each new site you launch needs to have kick start of initial back-links to build up its search engine rankings. Here’s the method I use to get my sites ranked fast…

Step #1: First you want to write of have written 20 (500 word) article that are targeted at the product you’re promoting. These aren’t reviews but more like “how to” articles thatpresent the problem and provide tips for solving that problem. Basically you want to tell your visitor why they should buy the product and how it will help them.Once your articles are ready you want to include a call to action with a keyword targeted text link in your author resource box that points back to your site.

Step #2: Then you need to submit all these articles to the top 20 article directories by hand. Yes, by hand… This is important because it will ensure your sites get a more natural looking link building pattern. So submit each article to each directory over a one week time period.

Step #3: Then you’re going to need 6 more articles to create 2 Squidoo lenses or Hubpages (your choice). Place 3 articles in each lens with pictures for each article for an added touch of visual appeal and link back to your website using your keyword in the text link.

Step #4: Next you’re going to want to submit you site to 500 web directories over a 30 day time period. Again this is better done gradually over time so you don’t have an unnatural burst of incoming links. This step can be outsourced if you find it to tedious and time consuming.

Step #5: Finally you’re going to want to run a small social bookmarking campaign and bookmark your site at the top 10 social bookmarking sites. Spread this out over a 2 weekperiod so you don’t trip any spam filters.There you have it… A surefire way to get your sites ranked well on Google and often times for competitive keywords. Use this formula for each new site you launch. It works like a charm!

Duplicating the Process for Niche Empire Success

Once your first set of affiliate sites is generating traffic and commissions you’ll want to duplicate the process repeatedly by building more and more niche sites. This strategy can be used to penetrate and dominate even the most competitive niches.

To duplicate the process effectively you have to get organized and break down the tasks into smaller modules that can be easily managed. Otherwise you can get quickly overwhelmed. Most of the tasks involved can be outsourced to freelancers living in foreign countries like India and the Philippines hell even in Bosnia where I live for pennies on the dollar.If you’re on a budget then you can save money by re-writing PLR (Private Label Rights) articles and doing the link building yourself until you can afford to have these tasksoutsourced. By using the power of WordPress and these strategies for affiliate marketing there is nodoubt you’ll be well on your way to creating your own successful niche empire.