Ad Insanity in SERPS

[ThopHayt]

Has anyone else noticed how aggressive Google has become with ads lately? They have 4 ads in the serps and another 9 in the sidebar... insanity. Throw in the stupid "People Also Ask" bar and you literally have to be #1 in organic results to even show above the fold.

I'll show you an example for "organic matcha powder" for instance. THIRTEEN total ads, plus the "ask" bar... followed by Amazon of course. This is a great example of what used to be a niche keyword that would have a lot of little guys ranking on the first page. You could easily be in the top 10 organic results of this example and be pushed way into page two (or page 3 in some extreme cases, perhaps). I have no real point to this, just venting at the explosion of ads.

 

[veboo]

Well someone asked will SEO die?

The answer is vague but clear. May be due to the adverts like this :/

 

[ThopHayt]

Even this doesn't "kill" SEO, but what it does do is cut into your profit margin. You need to rank higher to show lower, meaning you need to spend MORE to get LESS. The only saving grace is that people are increasingly searching mobile and Google can't cram this many ads on mobile without killing user experience.

I'd say the result of this is one of several things... you need to choose a niche where Google hasn't inserted a million ads, or you need to choose a keyword you can rank between 1-3 for sure, or you need to choose a keyword that performs BETTER on mobile than desktop.

This environment also means you need to absolutely optimize your conversion rates, and you need to become VERY good at email marketing your existing customer base in order to recycle leads. Fail to do those things and you may bleed out if you try to chase the SERPS.

-ThopHayt

 

[iBrazilian]

As ThopHayt said, it will only cut your profits, depending on your niche. If your site is made to make amazon sales, you can bet these ads cut your profit for sure, but if you're selling a product yourself then it's a whole different case.

That's why I personally chose to sell my own products instead of other people's. I know I'll be converting my products into sales, that way I get to keep all profit, aside from payment processor fees which is very very little.

Another thing is that, you need money to make money, if you're spending money wisely you'll make more than you're spending, otherwise it's not worth it. SEO is more expensive now, but you have to be smart about the niche you're going into, and nowadays another thing that you need to take into consideration is time.

I know other people who's in the game for making quick money, but for me I'd rather create a business that will last many years and that I'm able to create physical products off of it increasing income even further.

 

[Cleast Intwood]

Yeah i noticed the same thing the other day, this is depressing.

 

[MikeyMikey13]

Adult markets don't show no ads, cream of the crop keywords too.

 

[don chino]

There are keywords that don't have ads, but for many commercial keywords the serp looks pretty sad for organic marketers. The US market is most filled with the ads so might be reasonable to consider other markets for your organic SEO efforts, too. Even if your content is in English, there are many places worldwide that use it. The easier way is to surrender and buy google ads, but SEO is far from dead.

 

[nakamura]

Not every keywords have all this kinda ads. People start to look for products directly on Amazon tho. It has become a kind of "search engine" as well.

 

[FBM]

Mobile seems to be ok but that is ridiculous. Just makes it look spammy af

 

[bartosimpsonio]

One more thing: google is now showing more and more of your content straight on the serps.

StackOverflow and other questions/answers are already being shown on the serps. Are they paying S.O for this?

 

[neo]

One more thing: google is now showing more and more of your content straight on the serps.

StackOverflow and other questions/answers are already being shown on the serps. Are they paying S.O for this?

They won't.
Google will drop your rankings if you have coped content and will ban you if someone file complaint for stealing content.
But Google would shamelessly steal the content and cash on others hard work without even giving credits. Hypocrites.
But unless someone else comes with a better search engine Google will continue to dictate the rules.

 

[ThopHayt]

Here is my question, at what point will people get sick of using a paid-only search engine and leave Google? If I were Facebook I'd be pushing web search through Facebook HEAVILY with zero ads just to test these waters.

-ThopHayt

 

[drillerguy]

Yes but like its been said above, there are different devices that people are using nowadays and desktop is not among the best of user experience devices perhaps due to the numerous Google ads.

 

[iBrazilian]

It's funny that you guys are forgetting that the majority of users worldwide don't care about ads, you know that right? So just learn to live with it, when and if there's a better search engine available, begin targetting that already like you should be for yahoo, and bing already, I mean, w/e.. !

 

[darulez]

Yeah. Thats why I like my new job atm.Seo for fun and myself, PPC for $ and money. and yes. PPC is king.

 

[Minnehaha]

Dosen't this mostly happen with the main best keywords? The more you niche down, and the more weirder or 'immoral' the niche, the less ads?

 

[ThopHayt]

PPC is king.

Unfortunately that is becoming more and more true. PPC was always toe to toe with SEO, even back in the day... but as time goes on having a fruitful PPC campaign is #1 on many niches' must-have list. Luckily, when it comes to PPC, though, Google is NOT the only game in town. Facebook, Bing, Instagram and many, many others can get you paid traffic. Unfortunately for SEO Google still makes up roughly 80% of the market.

So, ironically, by pushing businesses toward PPC it seems Google may have incentivized people to explore other traffic avenues. And IMHO this is the future... getting your traffic from MANY sources, rather than just Google/Bing like we've done in the past. Facebook, Reddit, Yelp, IG, Twitter, and the list goes on.

-ThopHayt