One aspect of search engine positioning that has always been controversial is the pay-for-placement engines. After all, the Internet is a vast and free super highway, right? ...and we resent having to pay for something that we can get for free elsewhere.

On the other hand, many websites are experiencing excellent traffic through the pay-for-placement engines, so we need to keep anmind when it comes to the potential success of our website.

So let's take an insider's look into some of the pay-for- placement search engines, beginning this month with the oldest and largest of them all, GoTo.com.

GoTo is responsible for 2.9% of all searches -- http://websnapshot.mycomputer.com/searchengines.html -- slightly ahead of such notables as Lycos, Excite, HotBot, and AltaVista with 100 million searches performed per month and more than 10 million click throughs. They also boast as having 10 million unique visitors each month, which includes visiting the site through their Search Syndication Network^tm which features over 100,000 affiliate sites that have integrated GoTo search capabilities into their site or that direct traffic to the GoTo site itself.

For the month of March 2000, MediaMetrix.com rated GoTo as the #9 search engine, with a resulting 7,296,000 unique visitors during that month.

Not too shabby.

Not only that, GoTo's top 2 or 3 results are displayed at big name sites like AltaVista, Lycos, and HotBot.

But how many people actually purchase keywords through GoTo?

According to Christy, a GoTo representative, GoTo currently has over 25,000 active paying advertisers, which does not include their banner advertisers.

In regards to what you can expect to pay for a keyword at GoTo today, is there an average cost?

Answer: No, because the value of keywords tend to vary depending on popularity. Some keywords can be purchased for as little as a nickle ($.05) per click , while others in more competitive categories go for over $5 a click. Another factor is that competitors often outbid each other driving the bid prices upward. There is a $20 minimum charge per month.

Like many of the other pay engines, GoTo supplements its results from the Inktomi engine. Paid listings come first in the search results, followed by unpaid listings from Inktomi.

Simplicity Reigns

GoTo has embraced a philosophy that many of the major engines, such as Google, is gravitating toward. Rather than cluttering their site with a myriad of additional features, GoTo has chosen a site design that makes it easy for the site visitor to locate what they presumably can there to get -- search results!

Their adoption of a more simplistic approach to searching can be seen in their clear and simple interface. Your choices are few. You can search by utilizing their search window, or you can browse through their categories. If you're interested in shopping or auctions, you can choose either of those functions. Or, browse through their Small Business Directory to finetune your search even more. Tabs at the top of the page will guide you through every area of their site.

Not only is their user interface simple, but GoTo has fewer top-level directory categories than most other search engines. Their reasoning is that having more than 10 topics in a directory creates confusion to the average consumer.

Because results are purchased, and because GoTo enforces a strict relevancy policy, those who search at GoTo will generally get more relevant results -- which is another reason for GoTo's continuing popularity.

Advantages to purchasing keywords through GoTo

Besides providing results to many of the major engines, one of the other advantages to purchasing keywords through GoTo is the amount of potential traffic through some of the META search engines that GoTo provides results to. Some of these search engines and partners include DogPile, GoHip, Go2Net, Globe, and Fortune City, according to Christy of GoTo.

Greg Walthour with InternationalWebworks.com says that he gets "two for the price of one" with GoTo and DogPile. In other words, for every two hits he gets through GoTo, he gets another one through DogPile.

Other advantages include:

• GoTo presents users with 40 search results per page. So, your #15, or even #35, isn't found on the 2nd or 4th pages of results. Your site is there with all of the other "first page results." And, if you create a captivating title and description that will grab users and drag them to your site, you can conceivably bid less for your keyword and not sacrifice traffic.
• You only pay for clicks to your site, not for "page impressions." Page impressions refers to the number of times someone has the opportunity to see your ad or listing in the results. With GoTo, you only pay for actual visitors to your site.
• As Christy said, "You have control over where you are on the search."
• With the non-paying engines it's more difficult to effect where you appear in the results. In some cases you can spend weeks trying to optimize a page yet not make into the top 10 results.
• With pay-for-placement engines like GoTo, however, you choose where you want to be in the rankings. You don't have to worry about pesky META tags or complicated search engine optimization strategies. You simply cough up the money and your site is at the top.
• With the free search engines, when the ranking algorithms change, you may watch your top ranking plummet considerably. But with pay engines like GoTo, as long as you're willing to hand out the cash, you'll still be on top, no matter what's going on with the conventional engines.
• You can target your audience based on the keywords you've chosen. For GoTo itself, this means that you don't have to create a series of information pages designed to bring in traffic through those other doorways. Simply purchase the desired keywords, and you're off and running.
• "You can modify terms if you're not getting clicks on them, or you can totally delete them and add more terms," says Christy.
• If you choose a keyword and get little traffic, you have the option of deleting that keyword and choosing another one. Or, you can get a refund of any funds deposited into your account, except for the initial $25 non-refundable deposit.
• Christy suggests taking advantage of their Express Service -- http://www.goto.com/d/about/advertisers -- where you get a professional consultation to help you come up with a listing of 20 of the most relevant terms for your site.
• GoTo recently implemented a couple of payment plans to make it easier for you to manage your account. In their Non-Stop Payment Plan, your account will remain online without interruption if your advertising budget has been depleted.
• The Fixed Budget Plan allows you to set a fixed advertising budget that you want to spend each month, and when that amount has been depleted, your account is stalled pending action by you.
• With the pay-per-placement engines, the cost per lead is generally less than the cost per lead in some other forms of advertising.

Todd Watts of OneSoft.com says,

"Considering some of the poor responses that we received via the banner ad campaign, the keyword buys at GoTo represented a value."

So, how does this "pay-for-placement" stuff really work?

Let's say that you decide to try your luck at bidding on a keyword at GoTo. How do you get started?

First, visit the site and access their Search Term Suggestion List -- http://www.goto.com/d/about/advertisers/othertools.html. Type in your keyword, then get suggestions for related keywords and learn how many people actually searched for that keyword at GoTo during the past month. (Note: GoTo often moves the tool and makes it unavailable except to those who purchase keywords.)

Then, search for your keyword at the engine itself. Where do you want to be in the rankings? Where are your competitors?

Finally, visit their bidding location -- http://www.goto.com/d/about/advertisers -- and complete the onsite form. Keep these guidelines in mind:

• You must bid at least $.05 for a keyword, and increases to the bid amount must be in increments of $.01.
• Make your bids competitive! Look at the bids on the first page of forty results and see where you want your site to fall.
• GoTo claims that you'll have more success if you bid on ten to twenty items that are relevant to the content of your site, rather than picking a single keyword phrase. Consider synonyms and variations of your keyword phrase, your company name, your products or services, regional keywords, and more.

  Allan Gardyne says,

"I recommending paying the minimum account fee as an experiment and buying as many search phrases as you can possibly come up with to increase your chances of being seen. That's a very cheap way of finding out what works."

Allan and Nathan Power run a website called PayPerClickSearchEngines.com that offers excellent information about the different pay-per-click engines.

• The minimum order is $25. This means that you must deposit at least $25 in order to bid on a keyword. The initial $25 is non-refundable, but any amount over that is refundable.
• You can purchase as many keywords as you choose, but you can only link to one page per search term.
• Your keywords must be relevant to your site, and your title and description must also relate to the search term.
• Adult website owners must purchase keywords that are clearly adult-related. So, an adult site couldn't purchase keywords such as "girl," "doll," "couple," etc.
• Sites that depict acts of violence or illegal activities won't be accepted into GoTo.
• Orders are normally processed and implemented within 3 to 5 days. This lead time is needed in order for the editors to check the relevancy of your search terms.
• Did you know that you can bid on a directory term? You simply submit your bid in the same manner as you would any search term.

Make sure your title and description are captivating and designed to pull in traffic, and use your keyword phrase in each. Then, after you complete their submission process, wait for approval. Christy explains, "When you first submit terms, an editor will review the terms and approve or disapprove them. If the terms aren't approved, they will tell you why so you can correct it."

How can you increase your click-through rate?

According to GoTo's research, the #1 ranked spot gets clicked on three times as much as the #5 listing. However, keep in mind that captivating titles and descriptions can go a long way toward bringing in business, even if you're not at the #1 spot. And, by all means use your keyword phrase in your title and description.

However, since GoTo provides its top 2 or 3 slots to many of the major engines, you need to take that into consideration when deciding what to bid.

As with all other areas of search engine positioning, choosing the right keyword is paramount to boosting traffic. Don't choose keywords that are too broad, because that traffic probably won't convert to sales. On the other hand, don't choose keywords that are too limiting too, or you won't get any traffic.

Jerry West of WebMarketingNow.com says,

"I recommend choosing only VERY targeted keywords so you get qualified traffic, not those who are 'just browsing.' I had a client purchase 'toys' and they had a very niche market in the toy industry. They went through $700 in three days and didn't make one sale."

Robert Woodhead of SelfPromotion.com says,

"On GoTo.com, you should never take the top listing unless it is dirt cheap."

Woodhead continues,

"On very generic keywords, I like to be on page 1 but 'below the fold,' so that people have to scroll down to find me. Fewer clicks but they convert well."

"A subtle thing to keep in mind on GoTo is that you don't want to be the top listing; you want to be the top listing for what it is you're selling. So if you're selling left-handed monkey wrenches, on the query 'wrenches' you only want to be the top listing that mentions 'left-handed."

GoTo's Relevancy Police

What if you have a huge advertising budget, and you decide to purchase 100 keywords in unrelated areas simply to boost traffic to your site? Since you're purchasing keywords, aren't you able to purchase any keyword that you choose, as long as you're willing to pay the price?

Answer: Nope.

GoTo has a strict guideline pertaining to relevancy which is:

"Advertisers may bid on a search term if their Web site has content that is clearly and obviously reflective of the search term, and their line listing (title and description) accurately describes why their Web site is listed for the search term."

Briefly, their relevancy criteria states that search terms should describe the website itself, must reflect the content of the site, and must be found easily on the site.

Since the relevancy policy is fairly new, GoTo has a Quality Assurance Team that is currently going through and checking all areas of the index to make sure that every key term is relevant to the connected website.

For more information about relevancy, visit the Advertiser's Guide to Listing with GoTo.com -- http://www.goto.com/d/about/advertisers/relevancy.html

What's to prevent a competitor from clicking on your site over and over again to run up the cost?

A major concern with pay-for-placement subscribers is whether a competitor could spend hours running up the click throughs on their site. To present this from happening, GoTo's security software offers "click protection" against invalid clicking, and it monitors any suspicious activities. If you suspect that someone has utilized invalid clicking on your site, simply report it to GoTo, and their Click Activity Team will investigate.

Is there a downside?

With virtually every program, there is a downside, and this is certainly true when it comes to the pay-for-placement engines.

One area that generates the most complaints is the increasing costs per click through. Greg Walthour said that back in September, he paid $.06 a hit for "boston real estate," but it is now $1.26 a hit.

Greg explains,

"GoTo has almost gotten too expensive for the little guy. It's a case of the small guy going against the big guy, and the big guy will eventually win. The key is to get in early. Get in early and get a presence with your keywords because it won't last forever."

Another major area of complaint takes us back to the original idea of the Internet being a huge free resource for the taking.

Bill Guthrie explains,

"I do not like the concept, and I fail to see how the ability of purchasing ranking is going to improve the overall performance of a particular indexing service or guarantee valid results for a search. I'm afraid the ranking results of a search will become a matter of who has the deepest pockets instead of who has the best information."

How accurate is their Search Term Suggestion Tool?

Jerry West of WebMarketingNow feels that the information from GoTo's Search Engine Suggestion Tool is misleading. He explains,

"I feel GoTo.com is VERY misleading in their `number of queries' they post for the month. We got a top listing for a keyword phrase that stated was pulling over 3,000 queries per month and we got nothing, zero, nada. I find this VERY difficult to swallow that their numbers are legit. Having a #1 for three weeks and zero traffic? With 3100 queries the month before? Did I just buy the Brooklyn Bridge or what?"

In fact, subscribers to WordSpot.com may see totally different results at GoTo versus WordSpot, who gets their keyword results from the major meta crawlers and search engine voyeurs. So, when using GoTo's Search Term Suggestion Tool, understand that the results don't take into consideration distortions created by tools that check rankings or from Goto's affilate sites.

What does this mean when it comes to purchasing keywords through GoTo? John Heard of WordSpot says,

We've found that GoTo is a very cost effective service for companies, the cost per click is way below the cost for banner advertising and the leads generally convert well. We advise our clients to review both the GoTo Search Term Suggestion Tool and Microsoft's Bcentral - http://keywords.bcentral.com/ keyword search quote tool to get a feel for what kind of traffic is being generated for a search term on both engines.

We also suggest driving the leads from pay per click engines to a specific page or url so you can track if the visitors are traveling on into your site. If you find they're "stopping at the front door" so to speak, then you're wasting your money on that term, or you've been the victim of an automated tool clicking on your links. There are some issues at times with GoTo affiliates that pass "fake" traffic to goto because they get paid up to $10.50 per 1000 clicks. Make sure and keep an eye on your stats and watch for large increases in traffic that isn't traveling into your site.

In closing

If you're going to try your hand at purchasing a few keywords at GoTo, read this article and GoTo's submission guidelines very closely. Pick keywords that will have the best chance of converting to sales, meaning not to choose very general keywords that will run up your click through costs, and not to choose such specific keywords that you'll get no traffic whatsoever.

Start out slowly in terms of money, but choose at least 10 to 20 keywords to start. Monitor your GoTo traffic closely as well as through meta search engines such as DogPile. Adjust your strategy accordingly.

Oh, and good luck!

 

Note: In the process of collecting data for this article, Robin Nobles polled a group of past and present students of the Academy of Web Specialists. A chart showing results from that poll as it relates to GoTo.com can be viewed by following this link.

This article was written by Robin Nobles, Director of Training at the Academy of Web Specialists^TM. Over the past few years, she has trained over 1000 people in her online and onsite courses in search engine positioning strategies and has written three books that can be ordered through Amazon. Visit the Academy's training Website to learn more about their online courses: http://www.onlinewebtraining.com.

This article first published by Planet Ocean in their Search Engine News Update Newsletter (http://www.searchenginehelp.com/acws).

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