Why Pay for a term you get for free?

[grnidone]

I have a client who wants to pay for an ad for a term with which they rank #1.

Why Why Why would anyone want to do this? It is beyond me.

[David Wallace]

With some folks it is an ego thing. They want top billing in both organics and sponsored areas. Or it could be that they want the exposure across multiple search properties as well.

[KeywordMonkey]

For some they use this to push a USP, special offer etc. that they can't quickly get into natural SERPs. That might incldue a specific landing page, too.

[sebastian]

I am one of "those people"

I rank #1 for an important phrase to my company. I rank #1 in yahoo, google and MSN but i also pay for the #1 spot in PPC.

WHY? ...because #1 in organic is not truly #1. PPC results sit on top of organic results so people searching for my popular event phrase have the opportunity of clicking 3 or so links before my organic one.

unacceptable to me. so, i buy top spot and enjoy the organic benefits; BUT, it's important to note that i track like a madman on PPC and only use referrer for organic. the sales results are almost spilt down the middle between folks click and buying from PPC and organic. ...yet, i bet organic wins because many firewalls block the referrer cgi variable and thus i have no way of knowing if that sales was natural or simply some other traffic means.

[bhartzer]

pay for an ad for a term with which they rank #1
Sebastian is right. In some cases if you're number one organically you're not truly number one.

I've been wondering this, too, for a long time--If I'm number one does it make sense to also be number one in PPC? I have asked a lot of the PPC gurus out there and they all essentially said the same thing--there's actually more traffic available because some surfers only click on the PPC ads and not the organic SERPs. So, if you're not in both places there's still some more traffic that you can get.

[Mel66]

I agree with BHartzer and Sebastian. You can get incremental business from PPC even if you are #1 in the SERPs. Just track carefully to make sure you don't exceed your CPA.

The benefit of writing your own copy also cannot be overstated. You have little to no control over what the SE's will decide to show for your listing. You also have no control over SE updates that may knock you from the top spot. Always better to cover all your bases, assuming the costs fit your business economics.

Melissa