Search vs. Content
It’s always interesting to read these debates, especially when you get concrete niche examples like this one:
Luckily, a Chrismukkah.com press release found its way into the hands of a Wall Street Journal reporter, and Gompertz fueled the fire with pay-per-click ads. "Once we got the ball rolling, [search] was phenomenally efficient," he says a year later, as he readies a Chrismukkah cookbook and a tome about "the merry mishmash holiday."
Gompertz’s story is an exceptional one–and certainly the 30,000 units he moved last year are a pittance in the world of greeting cards, much less in the world of consumer packaged goods.
"To be honest, if we were selling traditional Christmas cards or another product that tons of people make, I don’t know how we would’ve approached online marketing at holiday time," Gompertz concedes. "If you’re in a competitive product category, it’s pretty tough to pull off."
Of course, they wouldn’t be fair to merely include that story without a content quip, and IGN’s Marketing Director, Jennifer McLean supplied their story as well.
I don’t think you can compare content and search, realistically and get a definitive answer as to which is better. You need content to have search, and you need search to find content. They’re not mutually exclusive. A smart marketer will combine the strategies and cover all the bases.
Tags: adsense, adwords, content, cpc, cpm, Google, msn, roi, search, yahoo