AdWords - Do you really need them?

I'm going to say something sacrilegious

I don't think Google Adwords are worth the money. For that matter, I don't think ANY AdWords (Google, Bing, Yelp, what have you) are worth the money.

I've noticed that when a company's site appears in BOTH the organic search results AND in the AdWords area at the top of the search engine results page (SERP), I often accidentally click on the AdWords link instead of the organic link a few spots down. This is BAD for the company, because the CLICK gets charged back to the company. You get charged per CLICK, not per CONVERSION. Understand the difference. This means if I click your site through the AdWords ad and feel that you were too expensive and then decided not to buy or subscribe, you just paid anywhere from $0.25 to $100 (or more depending on your industry, if that was your agreement) for that click.

When you subscribe to an AdWords program, you're basically "bidding" against your competitors for being displayed (not for conversion) at the top of the results page.

And if you have lots of competitors willing to pay a lot, and you want to keep up with the Joneses, YOU will pay a lot, or not be displayed at all. I'm sorry. But as a struggling entrepreneur paying ANYTHING per click with no promise of conversion to a sale is a waste of money, imho. You can get the same results for free by asking friends and family to visit your website on a daily or weekly basis, for example. (I'm not advocating this, but using as an example.)

In essence, with AdWords, what you're REALLY paying for is for people to visit your website. And therein lies the rub. A lot of web designers will try to convince you to subscribe to an AdWords program. This allows them to shortchange you on the development of your website's SEO. Instead of them working with you to craft organic content that includes your keywords, they just help you buy advertising through AdWords for those keywords. No real work for them, and you pay extra for that privilege. You sacrifice the long-term benefits of building a lasting, content-rich website for the short-term benefits of the quick-click visit statistic. Great deal for your web designers (less work) and Google (more $ in their pockets), but not for you.

And it's insidious. Once you're an AdWords buyer, with website content that is organically deficient , you will be paying for AdWords for the rest of your life to ensure a top ranking.

I honestly think that Adwords ads need to display at the BOTTOM of the first page of search results. Because then the sites with the best SEO will literally rise to the top. But that ain't going to happen. Google makes too much money. And if you're paying for an AdWords program, your web designer can develop a poor SEO site and still call it "SEO optimized" when it isn't, with you being none the wiser. "So how do I verify if my designer optimized my site's SEO?" you may ask. That will be another blog post. Stay tuned!

So open an Incognito window in Chrome and do a search of key words you want to rank on. If your company already appears in the first page of ORGANIC search results, you may want to consider discontinuing paying for that AdWord's PPC. And if your website doesn't come up on page 1 or page 2 in the organic results, you need to consider finding a different web designer. One who actually helps you create long-term value for your website investment.

Basically, your choice is invest now (with a good web designer who properly implements SEO) or pay FOREVER through AdWords.

Your choice.

Update from 11/15/2018: I just noticed Ads at both the TOP and the BOTTOM of a SERP. Wow. I don't like that at all. I'd rather have all organic results followed by Ads. Didn't realize that Google had started putting ads at both the top AND the bottom.