With the Internet growing by the minute and an increasing number of consumers performing product research through search engines, online businesses, non-profits, governments and individuals have realized their visibility in popular search engines may be key to their mission. Individuals use the web to promote their careers and availability to government administrations.
The success of many individuals to pursue careers through job postings on sites like Monster.com exemplifies this behavior. Monster earned much of its brand equity through prime time television advertising. Now, with competitors capturing potential customers of Monster by way of search engine traffic, Monster is one of the top PPC bidders in Google utilizing hefty marketing budgets to ensure prime placement in search engine results.
The entire Pay-Per-Click model has been a source of frustration and legal dispute due to fraudulent billing arising from click fraud. Click fraud is the creation of fraudulent clicks that are billed to advertisers while not delivering the traffic they were paying for. This may be accomplished by purposely clicking on a competitors advertisements, running up their PPC expenses, or through cleverly designed malicious software.
So far internet hackers have learned how to take advantage of every intentional Search Engine revenue model. E-Business operations have also felt the marketing budget pinch as it has witnessed the upward spiral of bid for placement prices, with high margin leads prompting PPC bidders willing to pay up to and exceeding $50US per click.
Perhaps the most important shift in internet marketing that search engines have engendered is that websites built to provide a certain amount of free information while offering paid services and products are receiving the traffic that retail oriented websites were receiving 3 years ago. The businesses that have reinvented themselves to be a resource for the potential consumer are reaping the rewards for offering real value to visitors rather than just a sales pitch.
Companies that have not come to this realization are paying ever increasing pay-for-placement costs associated with their sales only focus. If we associate better service and information availability with the changing landscape of internet marketing due to business models built around search engine traffic, we should all thank search engines for making it a wise choice to provide the best information in an effort to be one of the most relevant results for your service or product line.
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