Recently I achieved a number one organic ranking for one of my SEO clients and was anxious to see how much additional revenue the ranking would result in. The keyword was the number three revenue generating keyword for the clients Google AdWords campaign so I had very high expectations for the new organic ranking.
To my surprise, though revenue from the organic ranking increased, it didn’t increase near as much as I expected. Yet at the same time, revenue from the paid keyword had nearly doubled. As it turns out, the paid keyword was ranking number one as well so many of the customers were clicking on the ad first, then clicking on the organic listing. Since customers clicked on the paid ad, the Google cookie attributed the sales to AdWords, yet the organic listing made the sales.
So, when you’ve achieved a number one organic ranking but you don’t see a jump in revenue from the keyword, see how the keyword is doing in AdWords… AdWords takes all the credit.
This brings up another question…is it worth the expense to rank number one in AdWords when you have the number one ranking in the organic results? My answer: it depends on what it costs to rank number one in AdWords. If the keyword is very expensive (you’re barely breaking even or have a negative ROI), I’d try reducing the max CPC. If it’s not terribly expensive (you have a positive ROI), I think its worth the expense of ranking high on the paid ads for the exposure, branding, etc.