I’m not a fan of coffee, but I enjoy a rich Google blend
Google has been offering up “blended search” for years now, but not everyone fully understands what that means. Previously, Google had various “search verticals” where users could use Google to search for new articles, pictures, videos, maps, and more. The problem was that these verticals just didn’t get the use that Google’s main search did.
The solution? Throw in all that other stuff into Google’s main results. The results looks like this

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One thing that keeps popping up in our day to day dealings with clients is a misunderstanding about Pay Per Click and how it relates to Organic SEO.  Organic SEO campaigns are not the same as pay per click (or PPC) campaigns. Organic SEO results in the inclusion of your website in the main search results section of the search engine’s search engine results page. The PPC results show up in the left side bar section of the SERPs page.

Ranking highly in the Organic results section results in a much higher clickthrough rate and also leads better traffic to your website for reasons I’m about to explain:

Organic Search Delivers Targeted Traffic

If you’ve done your job right, and you must have if you’re managing to rank first or second for the keywords you’ve optimized for, your web page will be incredibly relevant to the search term that lead visitors to your site. That means that they were already looking for exactly what your site features.

Converting this kind of traffic is far easier. That means that there is a much higher ROI from organic SEO campaigns. Pay per click rankings, on the other had, are largely based on the amount of money that a company is spending on the ad. Therefore, they are rarely as relevant to the web page they lead to as an organic search result would be.

Organic SEO Provides Long Lasting Results

One of the biggest and most definitive differences between an organic search engine optimization campaign and a PPC campaign is the longevity of the results. Although SEO is a continuing process, organic results last a long time after you achieve them.

PPC results, on the other hand, plummet as soon as you take down the adds. That means that all the money you invested in the PPC campaign is completely gone after the campaign ends. On the other hand, your high organic rankings will continue to bring in traffic with a minimum of maintenance effort.

Organic Search Generates More Interest than PPC

As you can see form the heat map below, the user’s eyes gravitate straight to the top of the organic search results. A first or second place ranking there would be far more useful than ranking highly in the PPC sidebar.

SEO is More Efficient than PPC

In order to run a successful campaign over several different versions of pay per click (Yahoo!, Google, Bing etc.) you’ll need to learn how to use each different system and set up separate campaigns. With organic SEO, you are applying tactics that are universally recognized. For this reason, organic search campaigns cost less in terms of man hours and provide better results across several search engines.

There are places where PPC is appropriate. For instance, if there is a competitive keyword that you don’t’ have a chance of attaining good rankings for organically, PPC might be a good choice, but in general, the benefits of an SEO campaign far outweigh those of the PPC campaign.

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When visiting Google today you may notice a slight change. The search box and buttons is much bigger than it normally is. Is this Google trying to appeal to senior citizens?


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