Keyphrase comparison

I have bid on some keyphrases from February 1st to April 30th, and held them in similar positions during that time. These numbers are for search related impressions only. These campaigns were not involved in content advertising.

"Okeeffe print(s)" #3 position
Yahoo: 1 click 8 impressions 12.5% CT rate $0.10 cost per click	Google: 63 clicks 1642 impressions 3.8% CT rate $0.13 cost per click
"Ansel Adams photo(s)" #5-6 position
Yahoo: 20 clicks 2401 impressions 0.8% CT rate $0.05 cost per click	Google: 25 clicks 2529 impressions 1.0% CT rate $0.06 cost per click

Conversions

Our client February Point counted emails + contact forms as conversions. Here is a comparison from February 1st to April 30th.

"Real estate Bahamas" #3 position
Yahoo: 1037 clicks 19 879 impressions 5.2% CT rate $0.34 cost per click 3 conversions 0.30% conversion rate	Google: 1557 clicks 35 348 impressions 4.4% CT rate $0.45 cost per click 13 conversions 0.84% conversion rate

Clearly then, Google AdWords is a better choice if you are interested in clicks, impressions, and conversions. If you want lower cost per click for same position, it would seem that Yahoo is better choice (though conversions are lower).

Competition

- FindWhat is possibly third biggest pay-per-click (PPC) search engine, although there are a few that might be its equal: Kanoodle, GoClick, 7Search, Search123.

- E-spotting is very big in UK, and competes heavily with Google and Yahoo in PPC marketplace.

- MSN is getting ready to launch its own PPC engine to compete with Google and Yahoo (MSN currently uses Yahoo SM on its site). No date yet, but watch out for it.

Overall

To sum up, you will definitely have more control over your money with Yahoo's system. It is more open and honest, and you will pay less per click than with Google's system. Google does not tell you why you are paying what you are paying, but it does have added bonus of rewarding you with rank for a better converting ad.

Of course, Google does get more traffic and it converts better than Yahoo, and in end, isn't that what we're all looking for? Thus, Google should be winning choice for anyone that is looking to convert clickers into buyers. Because after all, who doesn't want to increase their sales?

What’s more, at time of writing, most of top 11 don’t actually accept submissions. The only ones that do are Google (described above), Yahoo, and MSN. Here’s a list of available submit pages.

• Yahoo – http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html (offers free submission)
• MSN – http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx?FORM=WSDD2 (offers free submission)
• Alta Vista – covered by Yahoo submission
• Netscape – covered by Google submission
• Fast / All Web – covered by Yahoo submission
• Ask Jeeves / Teoma – at date of writing was not accepting new submissions
• Hotbot – at date of writing was not accepting new submissions
• Lycos – at date of writing was not accepting new submissions
• AOL – at date of writing was not accepting new submissions
• Looksmart – at date of writing was not accepting new submissions

TIP: My SEO copywriting and advertising copywriting website http://www.divinewrite.com reached page 1 of Google.com for my primary keyword, “copywriter”, without a dollar being spent on search engine submission. I only ever submitted my site to engines that offer free submission.

Do I need to submit my site to other search engines?

As a rule, no.

With an estimated 8.8 billion pages indexed (approximately 76% of Internet), Google is number 1 when it comes to search engines. It’s argued that once Google has indexed your site, other search engines will follow. Theoretically, you don’t actually need to submit your site to Google either because it’s always on lookout for new content and will eventually find your site of its own accord. Google actually states, “Given large number of sites submitting URLs, it's likely your pages will be found in an automatic crawl before they make it into our index through URL submission form.” (“Google Information for Webmasters” - http://www.google.com.au/webmasters/1.html#A1) Personally, I wouldn’t like to take risk.)

Having said that, it certainly doesn’t hurt to submit your site to other search engines (especially if you haven’t developed any content for it yet).

Conclusion

You don’t need to be an SEO expert or an SEO copywriter to submit your site to Google and other search engines. And you don’t need to pay anything to do it. You just need to do it. And if your domain name is new, you need to do it NOW!

Happy submitting!

* Glenn Murray is an SEO copywriter and heads copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com. Visit http://www.divinewrite.com for further details or more FREE articles.