A small company's dilemma: using search engines effectively for corporate sales

Abstract

PurposeSmaller companies must continually review the pay‐per‐click (PPC) option or an organic listing on search engines. The purpose of this paper is to present a case study of a small manufacturing firm that is beginning to evaluate which search engine, Yahoo or Google, is more cost effective. Ultimately, management would like to identify if PPC advertising is worth the cost to a small company.Design/methodology/approachA one month's section of data from Yahoo and Google was examined. Patterns or indications as to which key word landed a better bid position was determined. Seven consecutive campaigns for click‐through rates (CTRs), average cost per click (CPC) and average position of keywords between the search engines Yahoo and Google were observed.FindingsThe average CPC was higher with Google. Kennedy Incorporated set a budget with Google and Yahoo to stay below a certain dollar limit, thus the total costs were the same. That would make the difference in the average CPC rather significant. Management also noticed a higher CTR on Yahoo than on Google. Thus it appears that Yahoo outperformed Google most of the time in the monthly samples.Research limitations/implicationsLonger historical data need to be studied, to see if these patterns continue. Other statistics that would be interesting to examine are data that would reveal how CTR in Yahoo and Google are affecting conversions to sales.Originality/valueIt appears from this data that Yahoo is outperforming Google for Kennedy Incorporated with a better CTR and a lower variance in average position when listed on the screen by a return from a search. The company has the impression that Yahoo is a better company for PPC advertising when the marketing budget is small.

Comparative case study on website traffic generated by search engine optimisation and a pay-per-click campaign, versus marketing expenditure

“…However, many industries, particularly the tourism sector, have been making extensive use of this marketing opportunity. In some cases even small businesses went to extremes to do research to identify the better search engine PPC scheme to use (Kennedy & Kennedy 2008). At the same time, the 'newness' of this form of marketing initially scared off other smaller businesses for example some smaller hotels did not make use of PPC (Murphy & Kielgast 2008).…”

Conversion of Website Users to Customers-The Black Hat SEO Technique

“…SEO has enabled many website owners to gain customers [2], [6][7][8], among the benefits that such optimization brought are: (1) proper application of SEO gives website a better user experience: one of the major factors for Google ranking is user experience (UX). SEO also serves benefits to small businesses in that, when Google spider crawls a website, the bot would want to embrace a mobile-friendly web design, well optimized contents (videos, images etc.…”

“…SEO, as the most important technique in a Search Engine Marketing (SEM) process and as part of an internet marketing strategy, can be utilized primarily for increasing a web site's ranking and lead to web domination [2], [6]. SEO can take into account how search algorithms work and what exactly online customers search for, in terms of user-centered design and online customer value [7] and costeffectiveness [8]. An approach, which is grounded on activity theory, as Krishnamurthy [9] observed.…”

Penerapan Model Utaut Untuk Memahami Niat Menggunakan Search Engine Advertising Pada Pelaku Umkm Provinsi Bali

“…Satu set hasil terdiri dari tautan "organik" (tidak disponsori) yang dihasilkan sebagai konsekuensi alami dari algoritma pencocokan hak milik. Set kedua dibentuk oleh tautan "sponsor" yang dikenal sebagai daftar "pay per-klick (PPC)" (Kennedy & Kennedy, 2008). Search engine advertising ditampilkan sebagai hasil dari iklan perusahaan, organisasi, maupun individu yang membayar kata kunci yang digunakan oleh pencari dalam permintaan pencarian.…”