PreferredSeat.com Blog

The cost of shipping tickets has risen faster in the last few weeks than ticket brokers have ever seen. The same is probably true for everyone that uses Fedex to ship as they raise their rates to more than cover the additional cost of gas. And if it doesn’t go down soon the cost to ship may be passed on to consumers as well.

Fedex has a policy in place to adjust the cost to ship a package depending on the current cost of gasoline. With gas prices rising almost daily Fedex has automatically raised rates and the shipper only finds out the new prices at the time he generates the FedEx air bill.

Most ticket brokers were probably breaking even or making a few bucks off of shipping tickets in the past but when the prices go up this fast they don’t usually pass the increase on to the customer so now they are often losing money on the shipping portion of the ticket sale.  Meanwhile Fedex has themselves covered and may even come out ahead.

Google made a major change in its search engine results last Wednesday reducing the rankings of low quality websites to improve the search results. So called “content farms” were putting out tons of low quality content that made it’s way to the top of many Google search terms and the company finally did something about it.

Many sites such as PreferredSeat.com are benefiting from the change in the algorithm Google uses to get those search results because it moves the websites with better quality content to the top. Since the change last week the site traffic to PreferredSeat.com has doubled and with more ticket buyers than ever finding the tickets they want without having to go through all the garbage ticket sites out there.

If you’re a small or medium sized  business like Preferred Seating tickets, getting one of the coveted top positions in a Google search is just what you’re looking for but almost impossible to attain. The first problem is the price it costs to get into one of the first three positions on a Google search page. The second problem is trying to get one of the remaining 10 free listings on the rest of the first page of search results.

And many times it’s the smaller businesses that have the best prices but if consumers can’t find them then everybody loses. And websites such as PreferredSeat.com provide real value to consumers who are looking for the cheapest ticket prices and reliable service.

Most people who use Google to find tickets for concerts, sports and theater don’t realize the costs that companies pay to get one of those first three paid positions on Google. And they pay dearly. A small local or medium sized business must pay the same price that any large national company pays for the same spot in the top three positions. The company that’s willing to pay the most for each click gets the top spot followed by the next two highest.

Most small and medium sized businesses cannot compete with the large national companies with huge advertising budgets. Large companies can bid several dollars per click and combined with click fraud it drives up the cost so most companies cannot afford it.  And since most people don’t look any further than the first three advertising spots on Google, most small businesses don’t stand a chance of being found by local customers on Google.

To get a position on the next 10 listings on the first page of a Google search you will notice that you have a much better chance if you are one of the ones paying big bucks in the first three search positions. It may not be that Google rewards them for paying for the first three positions; it may be more likely because Google just likes big companies at the top of their search results, regardless if there are better choices out there.

And as much as Google says it doesn’t give sites stuffed with keywords the top positions, many of the top sites in Google search results have dozens of the same keywords throughout the page Google gives top ranking to.

In the old days companies could run an ad in a local newspaper and expect to get results. Not any more. Most consumers turn to the internet to find what they are looking for today and Google is the top choice. 

For 2011 we hope that Google finds a way to help small and medium businesses that cannot afford to compete with large corporations to be found in the Google search results, for themselves as well as their customers wallets.