I have never been a fan of paid search. I know there are people who have visitors turned subscribers from paid searches like Adwords but except for few sales of ebooks, I have never been very keen on buying the visitors. I am more of a follower of building the visitors.

I have never used paid search for this site. May be in future that would change.

I am not against paid search marketing. but I do not advocate it for newcomers for two reasons

• You need to pay. For a person who has just started, it could be a dear expense
• There is a learning curve involved. You need to waste a few bucks  before you master the game. This expense may dissuade people from continuing with their ventures. Notwithstanding the amount of theory you have learnt, your concepts would  be strong only when you jump in.

Recently, I read an article in Website magazine that shows data from Hitwise to show that paid search has gone down in bringing in visitors. Simultaneously it also suggests that organic search has gone up. Here are few of the points mentioned

• In the four weeks to May 9, 2009, 7.25% of search engine traffic to All Categories of websites was from paid clicks. This compares to 9.84% in the same four-week period in 2008 – representing a 26% decline in the share of paid clicks.
• The share of paid clicks to Insurance websites was down 22% for the year, Retail 500 down 20% and Travel Agencies down 25%. The steady and consistent decline across categories indicates that this is not an isolated or seasonal variance.
• 35.75% of clicks on searches for “orbitz” were on paid listings in the four weeks to May 9, 2009. This compares to 46.56% in the same four-week period in 2008. This represents a 23% decrease year over year.

Whatever the reason and whatever is the over all effect would be a matter of discussion. But the wise idea is to invest in search engine optimization of the website

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