Comments on: When is PPC Better Than SEO for Public Relations?

By: info@

info@ — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 04:43:23 +0000

i will prefered using PPC rather than SEO for my new hot article, cause it work and can show in first page in just a second. rather tahn SE that need time to show in first page, but thank for sharing any way

By: Seo Stan

Seo Stan — Thu, 21 May 2009 09:45:14 +0000

If competitors are allowed to bid on your brand name (let’s say PayPal), bidding on your own brand name seems an expensive way to deflect customer attention from negative listings. I guess Google’s new policy to allow trademarks to be included in paid search terms will not only “balance the interests of users, advertisers, and trademark owners while leveling the playing field for all advertisers”, but also raise Google’s revenue considerably.

By: Ecommerce Help - Tyrone Shum

Ecommerce Help - Tyrone Shum — Sat, 16 May 2009 14:08:04 +0000

Since I cannot choose properly, perhaps for me, SEO + PPC = Win win situation if you know how to handle it. When you try to look up the definition of the so-called Pay per click programs you ca sum it up as a program that outs out ads that are relevant to your page which can gain you revenue. But apart from revenue, it can also generate you traffic so if ever you are thinking that you need to find another tactic aside from SEO for public relations, then PPC so be it!

By: Brennan

Brennan — Tue, 05 May 2009 12:21:12 +0000

The technique that works best if you are a premium advertiser of course is to just get an advertisement on the top right below the fold. I think SEO should be used on every situation to create a positive image but PPC shouldn’t be ignored especially when there are derogatory terms or websites about your brand.

By: aimClear

aimClear — Tue, 05 May 2009 02:13:15 +0000

Well Lee, how very PPC of you . Truly PPC in PR is like PPC in any channel, part of the overall marketing mix. There is an amplification effect in the way organic and paid work together…again, like in other channels. Thanks for the cool post.

By: Lee Odden

Lee Odden — Mon, 04 May 2009 20:08:07 +0000

Good point John. There’s a lot to be said for measuring ROI in the public relations biz overall. Something not too dissimilar from what’s happening with social media right now.

By: Lee Odden

Lee Odden — Mon, 04 May 2009 20:06:02 +0000

Thanks Peter. I think one gem out of this discussion is the use of PPC & site targeting on content networks to present the client side of the story in negative content situations.

By: Lee Odden

Lee Odden — Mon, 04 May 2009 20:04:33 +0000

That is a unique situation Joseph, thanks for the example. As for PPC to create a positive signal in the SERPs for reputation management, I’d suspect results will vary according to the situation.

The important thing for PR people is to start by including PPC in their standard mix, test it out and refine or kill it according to results.

By: Lee Odden

Lee Odden — Mon, 04 May 2009 20:00:50 +0000

Thanks for the example Jeff. Site targeting is an excellent idea!

By: John Deck

John Deck — Mon, 04 May 2009 19:47:57 +0000

The PR (brandking) value of PPC compaings is often ignored. Primay reason is that it is hard to measure the value.

AdWords campaign I ran had a good ROI for the leads it was generating. What was interesting was the cost for the total impressions that were recieved was lower than a small banner in an industry info portal. From the VP Marketing’s perspective he was getting leads and good branding. Remember the impressions were for targeted search terms, where on the info portal there was limited control just where the banner would show.

John Deck

By: Peter Young

Peter Young — Mon, 04 May 2009 19:25:04 +0000

Great post Lee.

In my opinion, PPC is often used as a reactive PR measure, rather than proactive PR-SEO campaigns. Certainly in my experience the benefits of using PR and SEO techniques to influence search results are fairly well understood (if often underutilised), however few organisations use PPC either via the search results or via the content network to attempt to influence negative PR (site targeted content ads have worked well for campaigns i have worked on in the past).

By: Joseph Fiore

Joseph Fiore — Mon, 04 May 2009 18:03:36 +0000

Thanks for advancing this discussion Lee – the commenters insights so far have been excellent. I admit that the damage control aspects fascinate me most. For instance, competitors who regularly claim they are “better than” the rest are likely to be using the competitions brand name(s) somewhere in their message (social media, word of mouth, announcements on their Websites, etc).

As far as using PPC as a counter strategy, Google’s TOS don’t allow the use of a competing brand name as a keyword in PPC campaign. Such scheme’s (aka passing off) can be especially problematic if they are recalling negative reputation incidents of competitors in their message, or hotly debated industry topics which point the finger at past offences.

There was a case where we discovered a gripe site through a PPC campaign so I suppose PPC could also serve its usefulness as part of a reputation monitoring strategy. The interesting part of that story is that the site owner decided to register false information on the domain record of the gripe site as a stunt to maintain anonymity.

Eventually, the site owner agreed to hand over the domain name as it infringed on the brand name, but I wondered at the time whether anyone has ever successfully had a domain delisted by reporting false whois information to ICANN or a similar domain verification body.

Joseph
@RepuTrack

By: Jeff Bentley

Jeff Bentley — Mon, 04 May 2009 17:36:47 +0000

Excellent post Lee, and some great comments thus far. I’ve used the content network for pr purposes with awesome results in the recent past. Example: a site had published less-than-flattering stuff about one of my clients *and* they were running Adsense. I used the site targeting feature in Adwords to push creative directly to the page in question, and it helped us steer the conversation back to our site. #awesome

By: Lee Odden

Lee Odden — Mon, 04 May 2009 16:53:43 +0000

Hey Stuart, I think there’s a time and place for humor in negative search reputation management situations. Monsanto does this slightly with their Monsanto on Monsanto blog. It’s a play on the name of a dissenting blog.

By: Lee Odden

Lee Odden — Mon, 04 May 2009 16:52:30 +0000

Hey Eric, good point. While people do gravitate to negative news, most are reasonable and interested in “both sides” of the story. Companies need to tap into that and make themselves available in the channels their audiences interact with. That conversation extends far beyond SEO and PPC of course, into social media and other content creation/distribution/engagement models.

The great thing about PPC as a counter to negative mentions in search results is that you can track how effective your landing pages are and adjust the campaign very specifically.

By: Eric

Eric — Mon, 04 May 2009 15:03:25 +0000

I always advised clients to have content running for their brand, especially in the case of a negative article. You cannot control what is being said about your brand – both positive or negative, but you can at least be present at either point through contextual advertising. At least you can provide a clear voice from the real brand at a point that would otherwise not have any contact.

This usually worked and resulted in a positive reaction from people clicking through from “negative” posts.

By: Stuart Foster ~ The Lost Jacket

Stuart Foster ~ The Lost Jacket — Mon, 04 May 2009 14:40:28 +0000

Interesting stuff Lee, I definitely agree with Max’s point with the necessity for SEO (and PPC) to be part of a larger marketing strategy. The damage control aspects of it’s usage are particularly interesting.

This is just me but I’d add a little humor in the form of a microsite landing page for that PayPal ppc ad. “We may suck, but not as bad as the dude who set up a site declaring our suckage” or something of that nature.

By: Lee Odden

Lee Odden — Mon, 04 May 2009 13:44:43 +0000

Great insights Max, thanks.

I suppose the mixing of advertising into PR efforts may seem to blur the lines a bit for some, but as you know so wel, PPC is another distribution channel to extend reach.

The question is, whether audiences respond as desired.

By: Max Kalehoff

Max Kalehoff — Mon, 04 May 2009 13:29:39 +0000

Hi Lee,
Examples? I know a few large PR agencies that have savvy internal online media divisions — almost separate from the day-to-day conventional PR practitioners. Most PR practitioners have little clue about PPC. It’s important to remember, though, that while PPC is more on-demand than SEO, it’s not necessarily instant-on. Why? First, a successful campaign requires several key components: proper account structure; keyword research; landing pages; tracking and internal processes to follow-though post-conversions. And even if you can get all that into place quickly, there’s still ad Quality Score…which is something earned over time.

Regardless, it complete makes sense for PPC, SEO and PR to work in concert. Cheers.
Max