Paid Placement vs Pay For Inclusion
Which is right for you?

With various buzz words being touted out in cyberspace, I think we need to start with some clarification. The term "pay-per-click" can refer to both a paid placement program and a pay for inclusion program. It is simply a pricing model and does not represent any specific type of service.

Paid Placement (PP) is a service where the site owner selects the keyword phrases that he wants his site to rank high on, creates text ads for those terms and bids against other sites for top placement. These ads typically appear at search engines under "sponsored listings" or "featured sites" or they may appear on the right hand side of the screen in boxes. This program gives the site owner complete control over his site's visibility and the pricing model is typically pay-per-click — or pay for each visitor that clicks on your ad to visit your site. You are not paying for exposure, just visits.

Pay for inclusion (PFI) is a service where the site owner pays a search engine to index his site. In response, the search engine guarantees that they will index the site but does NOT guarantee that they will include it (although most will if your site meets their guidelines). They also do not guarantee any specific ranking position of your site under any particular keyword phrase(s). The pricing model for PFI used to be a flat fee paid once or annually. LookSmart changed that model when they introduced their inclusion program with a flat fee for review plus a per-click fee. Now, Yahoo! has decided to follow suite and introduced their new Site Match program which charges a flat fee for inclusion on a per-page basis plus a cost-per-visitor. The only control the site owner has is which pages to submit for indexing.

To determine which program is right for you or if you should do both requires some research. First you have to take into consideration your market. How much competition is there for your product or service on the Internet? If it's a large market and fiercely competitive, you should definitely look at both programs. A Web-Kare account executive can work with you researching keyword terms and their current bid rates. From this information he or she can help you decide which terms you should buy in a PP campaign and which terms you need to optimize your site for in a PFI campaign. With PFI, you also have to decide which pages you want to submit. We recommend that you submit the "core" page or pages of your site — product listings, specials, newsletters, etc. — pages that are most likely to be updated on a regular basis because PFI includes timely re-indexing of your site.

Whether you have a competitive market or not, you need to check out the current PP bid fees. If they are higher than the per-click charge the PFI search engines are seeking, then PFI might be a better choice. On the other hand, if the PP bid fees are less than the PFI per-click fees, then consider a PP program as first choice. For some industries, there will be a mix. Some keyword phrases will be less expensive as part of a PFI program while others will be less expensive in a PP program. The determining factor for which keyword phrases to place in each program will not only be the per-click cost, but the traffic count. Some PP providers have a minimum monthly spend, your Web-Kare account executive can help you research and prepare a marketing plan that will place your keyword phrases strategically for maximum ROI.

Even if you decide to stay with free listings (yes, they're still available), you should realize that your site will need to be optimized to get indexed. Not only does it need to be optimized for the proper keyword phrases as determined by our research, it has to be optimized to meet the search engine guidelines. Search engines are cracking down on "overly optimized" sites, refusing to include them in their index. Contact Web-Kare today for a free site evaluation of your site and to speak with an account executive.