According to Hitwise, the past month’s paid search traffic is down 26% from the same time-frame last year. Hitwise said, “This is no doubt a result of cutbacks in marketing spent due to the recession.” This analysis, however, seems shallow at best.
The online marketing blog The Marketing Pilgrim suggests a less worrisome reason. Perhaps companies are no longer paying for their own names for paid search traffic, when their organic traffic is high enough, and of course free. They ask, “is it likely due to a reduction in budget spent, or is Orbitz et al are figuring out that they really don’t need to spend so much on paid advertising–considering they’re #1 in the organic results?”
The Takeaway: Perhaps it is time for you to look at the keywords you are paying for in search traffic. If your keywords render your website in the top results of a search engine, perhaps your money would be better spent on keywords that you are less likely to get organic traffic from.
