Recently, our junior web developer and resident movie director, Chris Brailsford, forwarded a story about the effectiveness of AdWords in relation to organic results.
If you have a very relevant site and show up on the first page of search results for a specific term you may think, “Why would I ever spend money on AdWords for the same term?” According to this story, it might result in 50% more clicks. However, as with most things dealing with the internet this strategy is not for everyone.
Here at TXAD, we work primarily with RV parks and campgrounds. There are several who are now asking what it takes to ‘come up on Google’ or ‘get on the first page.’ It’s our belief that the most direct route is AdWords. Yes, optimizing their website to the best of our ability will begin a gradual march towards the top but in order to flip that switch, Google has made it easy to get there.
But! The costs of getting on that first page have to justify the clicks. We generally advise to bid on location-based terms – austin rv parks, branson campgrounds, etc – since it is the first qualifier of where a traveler ends up. These terms generally run in the $1.00 per click range and don’t take more than a few bucks per day in budget. If a client is OK with spending a couple hundred dollars a month then there is no issue. But if your park is coming up on the first page under a term that is relevant than you may decide to use those hundreds of dollars somewhere else.
