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Pay Per Click Rates Skyrocketing

PPC/SEM Click Fraud Also on the Rise.

Keyword prices continues to increase substantially. In recent weeks several well known brands have ripped through their quarterly SEM budgets with little conversion to speak of. Just last week eBay (now sponsoring nearly every possible keyword combination), FTD, and Blue Nile have all publicly groaned their PPC keyword rates have increased more than 50%. Blue Nile blames the PPC rate increase on "irrational behavior" and Blue Nile founder Mark Vadon cites Google AdWords keyword rate increases as the primary reason why his company missed its fourth quarter 2005 revenue projections.

Both Google and Yahoo/Overture have confirmed that their sponsored keyword rates are rising rapidly. The market frenzy and rush to sponsor keywords coupled with rising click fraud corruption is creating a complicated environment and trap-filled SEM lansdcape.

Consider implementation of an comprehensive organic search engine foundation that provides keyword exposure and brand consideration on the search engine results pages as in-depth pay per click research is conducted.

The most sucessful search engine optimization programs involve organic search engine optimization as the basis point and Pay Per Click as an additional layer that is dropped later to augment and compliant organic seo efforts.

Also keep in mind that searchers prefer the organic search results 6 to 1 vs. paid and long-term seo strength can only be accomplished through organic website optimization programs. Make sure that your website and content is open for indexing by the robot crawlers that determine the order of links on the results pages before becoming active in the Pay Per click "open auction" marketplace.