Why just getting hits is not enough..

Two months ago I did a very basic breakdown on how our WebUpdate system generates excellent organic Search Engine results without having to rely on Pay-per-Click.  I took actual traffic results from just one of our sites,  and then compared how much those results would cost per month if the site owner had to pay for each hit instead. 

That column touched nerves amongst many businesses who are currently paying hundreds or thousands of dollars in ongoing PPC costs, and it generated our highest number of call-ins ever during my ten years of writing WebWorks.   

All the call-ins had the same story, they had had sites designed inexpensively by either friends-of-friends, or part-time or less experienced Web Designers, believing that just having an online presence was enough.        

However, the owners were quickly disappointed when their new sites could not obtain good Search Engine results, especially as the economy turned and online sales became crucial to survival. 

At this point, they were told that the only way they could get hits was by Pay-per-Click. However,  even after months of paying, a lot in some cases, they were still not getting enough calls or sales, despite being clicked many times a day. 

Why would this happen?

As I had touched on briefly before, most Search engine users are comparison shoppers, and it is this 'human element' that causes the dilemma.   Even if you pay for people to click your link a thousand times a day,  your site still has to appeal to visitors so they actually buy something, or make contact.  

If your site does not compare favorably to the other 15-20 search results, most of which will have been created by professional, experienced Web Developers, you simply will not retain visitors, and are literally throwing your money away. 

This is where the Catch-22 comes in. 

What can you do?   

Pay-per-Click reps will say "increase your PPC budget again to get more hits", but that is like spending endless money to keep patching a leaking roof.  It would be cheaper to pay one larger sum to have roof replaced, fixing the underlying problem, then not have to worry about it for a long time.

The highest amount a local call-in company was paying to PPC was $750/mo.  That is $9,000 a year, forever, and they still weren’t getting results. 

The bottom line is that for a one-time fee of just over 1/2 that price, and for only $1,200 a year subsequently, they could have a completely new site created.  This would immediately save them around $4,000 in the first year, and $7,800 per year after that, whilst increasing sales potential. 
  
As one impressed company owner I met with last week said, “The numbers don’t lie”