Brad, those numbers speak volumes don't they?  I wonder what would happen if a telemarketer that can put you on page one of google ever gets hit with numbers.  Not the same as PPC, but they sound surprised when I say I am already there...

Hi Brad!  Hope you're well and planning to attend RDU's REBar camp this Friday!

You know, I've always heard this to be true but, have never really taken the time to check the stats--thank you for doing this for us and proving that organic IS better!

 

Brad, I have worked my site organically since 2003.  I have troubles paying for something that I can do for free.  I'm glad to hear that you have found the results are better organically also. 

Brad, I really need to take my website to the next level.  My viewers are mainly ppc.

Brad:

Your ebooks on the right aren't  working. . .FYI

This is why it makes sense as a Realtor to be constantly work on getting better organic results.

You're the one who taught me about "organic".  I followed through for awhile and was quite pleased with the result.  Then I stumbled . . .but I am going to get back up and take care of it properly again.

Brad - That's interesting. Whenever I do a Google search I always pay no attention to the ppc ads at the top of the page. I go for the organic results.

Brad - Very interesting information.  I will know what to say the next time one of the telemarketers calls me to tell me he can get me to the first page of google.

Brad - Thanks for the confirmation ..... we live in a rural community with a small population ..... When we first started our web sites my web guy hubby told me PPC were a waste of time as people would go for the organic searches ..... 

Here is another interesting stat for you ..... Hehas been playing with Google analytics and just yesterday he was telling me of the results from a test he was doing to see which dove more traffic to our site an MLS listing or our own Marketing.

In first 14 days of a new listing 50.84% was from the MLS system of web sites and 49.16% was from our own marketing.  ..... web sites, emails, google searches (Web Site SEO) and Active Rain. He was surpised to see AR a way down on the list as AR used to drive more traffic to our sites than anything.

I find writing blogs posts benefits me in so many ways, by knowing the area I serve better, by being up to date on events in the area and by climbing the Google SEO for my key words.  I won't say I would never do PPC, but my heart is in climbing by effort. 

My husband however is getting frustrated because when he searches for different things, he has to get past all the blog posts that "clutter" his search.  lol

 

Cindy in Indy

 

Hey Brad,

Thank you for the information.  My website www.northwestvideotours.com is pretty new so I have been approached with many ways to go about promoting my site.  A lot of SEO campaign managers swear by PPC marketing and have been pressing me hard to get signed up.  You have made it aparent and confirmed my beliefs that organic, page #1 through 3 on google and other search engines, is the premier and most effective way to be succesful.  I guess PPC is nice because you can track your auidence, and your investment is easy to follow and adjust, but if we want to be truly successful, we have to get to the first page in our relevant keywords!

Thanks for the post,

Micah

NorthwestVideoTours.com

Good content!  I've always been curious about the benefits of pay per click as I am a professed organic search guy.  Never tried pay per click, this gives me good ammo to keep on keepin' on :)

Good statistics! I was wondering why Google sent me a $100.00 coupon to comeback to ad words!

Quality post, Brad. Thanks!

Great post Sir and way to utilize some stats.  When you put those big pics out there who wouldn't want to look at the numbers.  Organic and paid are both good forms in my book.  Organic is better of course, but some people prefer to buy the leads, traffic, clicks and so on.  They prefer something over nothing and nothing is what they would get if they didn't pay.  You give sound advice and back it up... hope to see more of your posts in the future. Definitely bookmarking you. 

Thanks for sharing the stats! I'm finally starting to get my share of the organic visitors and it's really cool where they come from. I can see how you get addicted to the analytics! It's easy to forget what your real job is when you spend so much time playing on the web. The web traffic is great but I still get most of my business by the old school "interruption" marketing but much like PPC...it's all necessary to have a good balanced attack!

Brad, thats true, even have noticed this very critically.

@Bill. You are also correct.

I nearly passed out when I read, "I'm one of the few people who actually enjoy looking at Google Analytics".  I analyze mine when I wake up in the morning and throughout my day.  :) Glad to see Im not alone!

Shannon Lefevre, PA

Brad, I am assuming you designed the Maui Real Estate site....if you did, then good job!

Brad, thank you for sharing this info. It's certainly good to know!

Love to read your blogs, follow the lessons of SEO.

Great points i would like to see update on these graphs in 2011. I bet it is more slanted now. We teach brokers and agents to get off of the PPC bottle. Mike

This is great info. I guess I really need to start paying more attention to my numbers and start tweaking the sites.

Keep up the great blogs.

Paul

i couldn't agree more! Paid traffic is hardly worth wasting money on . Why not invest that money (It's easy to go through $500 bucks in adwords ) in a paid blogger! get 10 articles prepared with keyword density in each one. Surly there is a starving journalism student near you! That will earn you credibility, traffic and maybe a sale or two!

I work in Nova Scotia, Canada.  The other side of the world to you. Ha    Condos Nova Scotia

I'm a Realtor but my husband is in the wedding business and started using Google Pay-Per-Click in January. I was very skeptical but he got a $100 credit from Google so he tried it. He started getting tons of calls immediately, but most of them were not the right kind of customers. Over the past couple of months he learned how to reduce the bad calls but putting "negative" keyword in his account, meaning words that he doesn't do, such as "bi-lingual." It has reduced the number of calls (and cost!) and he's been getting better calls. Also, the time spent on the site and number of pages people are looking at are getting closer to the organic numbers. He is converting many of these callers into customers. He's gotten so much activity from Pay-Per-Click that I'm getting ready to start doing it with real estate. I think the key is adding negative keywords to be excluded and limiting the search terms. Well, we'll see how it goes with real estate.

havent seen you active for years, are you still in real estate?