As the economy takes a slide and people start to reduce their spending, especially in areas such as advertising, it may be worth reviewing where it would makes sense to make those cuts.
If you have a paid search campaign such as Google Adwords, you can get fairly accurate information related to where your traffic is coming from and how successful your SEO and paid search campaigns are.
One area that you should pay particular attention to is your organic search results. I have noticed several sites have large duplication issues. By duplication I am referring to keywords that have a high organic traffic component also being used in paid campaigns. My question in these situations is why pay for traffic when you are getting a substantial amount for free?
In effect, you are competing against yourself. A searcher enters your keyword and the result list your page in the top five for organic results, at the same time your paid listing is appearing. It can be counter productive. Of course, conversion rates are important and if your paid results are converting well and paying for themselves, then leave them alone, if they are not then ditch them and concentrate on keywords you don’t rank highly for.
It becomes a balancing act. Sure, you may lose some traffic by not targeting those keywords, however you may find that by concentrating on keywords that you don’t rank highly for that your conversions increase along with your profits.
If you don’t need to compete with your organic search results, then don’t. Save your money and reinvest in areas that may offer a better return.
