Are Pay Per Click Ads Now Organic Links?

Are PPC Ads Now Counting in Google Organic Backlinks? (searchenginewatch.com)

In the past, I've said there's no direct correlation between editorial rankings and paid advertisements. Well, it seems I was wrong. Paid search really can affect organic search.

The article talks about how paid ads on Google and Yahoo using terms that the site was not optimized for are giving websites better results when people search on those same keywords. If this is how the rules are now, it changes things because you can essentially buy a top position in Google's supposedly organic results.

One nice thing about SEO (search engine optimization) is that you could spend a few thousand dollars doing that and save the $400-500 you were paying monthly using AdWords, giving you more lasting results. So the correct way to do website marketing, it seems, would be to do a bit of both. This isn't anything new except that we haven't seen the paid ads affect the organic results before. This changes the formula.

What I would suggest is doing SEO on the longer tail keywords and then do PPC (pay per click) on keywords that are shorter and harder to optimize for - if your budget allows it. When doing this, you want to make sure you have a website with clear call to action statements the converts your visitors into real sales.

-Tony

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