SEO vs PPC Revisited
In one of my first posts after taking ownership of this Blog, I described how the relative search popularity trends for ‘SEO’ vs ‘PPC’ as shown by Google Trends reflected the current economic climate.
I laid it on a bit thick to make the point but the link seemed pretty clear. Jim, from the NetFool, thought I was reading too much into it and that search trends didn’t reflect the economy.
Well they do - to an extent.
If you only look to see what’s Hot in Google Trends at any one time then of course that just reflects the relative popularity of current cultural/social/news topics – but if you narrow your search down to two competing ‘generic’ terms like this and refine your search to look at specific geographic areas then they do give some indication of the current economic state.
Look again now at Google Trends, compare seo & ppc and look at the 12 month trend for USA, UK, Australia as opposed to say, China (India seems a different case, as SEO has always led PPC there and the pattern seems stable).
The trend I pointed out in my original post is continuing (and in the case of the UK and Australia the gap looks to be growing). SEO is gaining ground over PPC in the main English-speaking ‘Western’ (and European) markets and that’s not reflected (yet) in China.
OK, I’m not being 100% deadly serious about this - PPC will always be here of course. It’s great for kickstarting campaigns and getting traffic boosts – and the guys with the massive generic domains (Fly.com is for sale at SEDO by the way – be prepared for a 6-7 figure price though) will always be secure anyway. For the rest of us it just reminds us that organic is best.
By the way – Wednesday seems to be the most popular day of the week for ‘SEO’ searches in the US 
While you’re here – have a click on that nifty little ‘pencil’ in the sidebar – yes, that’s the one, it says ‘Random Post’ on it. Guess what it does? Well – if you click on it, it’ll take you to a mystery Internet Babel Post – it could be one from yesterday or a year ago and it could be about anything – you might find something you missed before. go on…Click it.
I appreciate the linkage, but I’m really not following how a rising search for the term “SEO” would reflect a deteriorating economy. I mean, what does search engine optimization have to do with the size of our wallets? If anything, as things fall further you’d expect PPC to GAIN ground since it is more relevant to making money online.
Hi Jim – I think in a recession/slump the tendency will be to reduce spend on ads/ppc. Spend on seo wouldn’t neccessarily increase – but people would retain seo before advertising and even look at doing some home-grown/in-house SEO. Searches for SEO aren’t neccessarily ‘rising’ in volume, but performing well in a direct comparison to searches for PPC which are tailing off.
thanks mate
Dave
Thanks a lot for the great information. Overall I would really rather choose to improve my SEO tactics rather than go and spend money on PPC ads. It just works a lot bette for me, and it is free of any charges for the most part. I really like your page layout. Keep up the great work.
organic is for the long term and PPC is for both.. I dont really get SEO as something I should work hard to.. But well I see a lot of people w/their sites sitting on their organic rankings which is at the top..
I am big fan of Google trends to check out french market and german market make more easy my ppc campaign…