48 Hour Google Listings - Know what you are signing up for!
I received this email today promoting guaranteed listings in Google and Yahoo in 48 hours. I think it’s unfortunate that many people in the search engine marketing industry feel it’s okay to prey on people’s ignorance.
I say this because what “getting listed” in Google and Yahoo means in this email is very different to what most people think it means.
You need to understand the difference between paid search engine advertising and free organic search engine rankings.
What these ads actually offer is placement in the paid search engine advertisements. Paid search engine advertising literally takes 15 minutes to have up and running, so why is 48 hours a big deal? Well, what most people think ”getting listed” means relates to organic search results, which usually take weeks and months to get. So whats the difference?
For the purpose of this explanation we’ll use Google to explain. Click on the image to the right for an overlay of the Paid vs Unpaid areas of Google search results.
Search Engine Ads (also known as Pay Per Click, PPC, Sponsored Links, Google Adwords):
- May appear across the top of a search, but always on a light yellow background
- Usually appear on the right hand side of your search
- Are noted by the text “sponsored links”
- Are limited to 35 characters of text per line
- Are paid for when someone clicks on the link in the ad
- Run when and where the advertiser wants you to see them
- Are not necessarily relevant to your search
- Can be set up and running in about 15 minutes
- Get about 1/7th of the clicks that organic listings get.
Organic search listings:
- Always appear on the left hand side of Google, and always on a white background
- Are based on the pages and text of your website
- Cannot be bought (you can pay a company like ours to “optimise” your site to help you get them, but you cannot pay Google for them)
- Are based on a computer algorithm that determines whether the site is relevant to your search
- Usually take at least a couple of weeks or months to get (The fastest we’ve ever got to number one in Google is 24 hours for this page about “cool flash websites“)
- Are 7 times more effective than paid search ads.
Now if you read the fine print of this ad, it does state that the offer relates to “sponsored links.” You’ll have to look hard to see it and you’d really need to know what sponsored links are to be able to discern what this ad was all about.
If you’re looking to get listed in Google and Yahoo, then first understand the difference between what’s paid and what’s not.
From the author: If you regularly advertise for leads in the Yellow Pages®, in the newspaper or on the radio, then there’s a good chance that your website could be generating more leads for you than it is. The key is in your website’s conversion rates.
Yellow Pages® is an Australian registered trade mark of Telstra Corporation Ltd. This company has requested and has been granted permission from Telstra Corporation Ltd to use the Yellow Pages® trade mark. This company is not otherwise associated with Telstra Corporation or any of it’s subsidiaries.
