Organic Search vs. PPC advertising? Which is the best way to outrank your competition and generate traffic to your web pages? This has been one of the longest running SEO debates in recent years and will likely continue that way.
On one hand, you have companies like Google, who are investing an enormous amount of money into their advertising program. They are also constantly improving their organic search algorithms as well as adding in new features and functionality.
On the other hand, there are those of us who believe that organic search still remains king.
Let’s explain the elements of organic and paid traffic. We’ll also go over how both SEO best practices can be used to complement each other in order to achieve better search engine rankings as well as target potential prospects/clients.
What is Organic Traffic?
Organic traffic is a result of organic search. Organic SEO refers to the processes involved in promoting your website so that it ranks higher in organic (free) search results as opposed to paid or sponsored listings. The majority of organic traffic comes from Google due to its dominance of the search engine market share.
Main takeaways about organic SEO:
– Organic SEO is free whereas paid advertising has a cost associated with it.
– Organic traffic can be free if you are a blogger or content provider and gain organic links from other websites.
– Organic SEO requires constant upkeep to remain competitive.
– Organic search traffic can increase dramatically if you write great content that solves the problems of your target audience.
What is Paid Traffic?
PPC stands for pay per click. It refers to ads that are placed on Google’s Search Network and other search engines, including Bing, Yahoo! and Facebook. These paid results appear in the top positions when someone uses a search engine to find a product or service online.
Here’s the main takeaways about paid traffic from PPC:
– PCC costs money.
– When users search for specific terms, your ads will appear above the organic search results.
– PPC campaigns can be created with a maximum budget.
– Google Analytics lets you know where organic traffic is coming from so that you can adjust your paid campaigns and ad groups accordingly.
– Great way to increase brand awareness in niches.
– Not great for reaching new types of customers.
Difference Between Organic and Paid Traffic
The main difference between organic and paid traffic is that organic traffic does not involve any financial transaction, hence it is free for both parties. Whereas paid traffic involves spending money on advertising campaigns and paying for each visitor that clicks through to your website/landing page. Paid advertising thus generates more leads than organic traffic but at an increased cost.
It is important to note however, that organic also has its own costs – time! You are competing with everyone else for organic traffic. Organic traffic can also be free if you are a blogger or content provider and gain organic links from other websites.
Organic SEO Techniques
The first organic search technique is to create high quality and, more importantly, unique content on your website that naturally attracts inbound external links from authoritative sites. This is because Google’s algorithms give preference to web pages that have more organic (free) incoming links. In turn, these organic links help the page rank higher for specific keywords/phrases related to its content.
Secondly, a great way to attract organic links is by writing useful articles that link back to your site as well as sharing them across all of your social media channels. You should aim to build a good reputation for your business so people want to link back to you.
Another organic SEO technique is to show up in image searches. This involves optimizing all of your website’s images with the relevant keywords/phrases that are being searched for on Google Images. Furthermore, you should also create an editorial calendar as well as a content marketing plan that outlines how often your site will be updated, what topics you will write about and who the target audience is. In addition, make sure to add keyword phrases wherever possible across your web pages (slug meta tag) as well as throughout the actual content of your articles, not forgetting to use them in the title too! You should now have enough organic search knowledge to tackle paid traffic!
PPC Advertising Techniques
The first paid advertising technique is to use the correct keywords for your campaign. You should aim to keep them short and simple so they are easy to remember whilst also being relevant to what you offer. In addition, try different keyword variations as this could increase your traffic volume and overall sales.
Secondly, when running PPC campaigns it’s important to set a budget that is affordable yet profitable enough to see a return on investment (ROI) in a certain time frame. In order for your ads to show up, you will need an AdWords account which enables you to create and manage sophisticated ad campaigns/ad groups that include multiple ads across multiple devices (desktop, tablet etc). Furthermore, make sure not only your text ads but also your display ads stand out from the crowd.
Last but not least, implement Google Analytics to monitor your website’s organic traffic and conversions. This enables you to see what is working well and what is costing you money e.g. CTR or PPC costs per keyword/ad group so that you can make changes as required.
The Golden Rule of SEO: Content is King
Wherever your visitors come from, whether it’s organic or paid traffic, content is king! If your website has poor quality content or outdated information, you’ll have problems getting organic search engine traffic when someone searches on relevant keywords within various search engines. You should always focus on providing high quality information to your visitors and customers via the web. This allows them to get what they need with your business; this creates trust between them and your brand.
If your content is useful, informative and well-written, it will get organic search engine traffic through various organic channels such as Google Search, Bing etc. As a result, organic search traffic can increase dramatically if you write great content that solves the problems of your target audience.
Paid advertising is not going to last forever either given how quickly things change on the internet and in regards to SEO strategies. Therefore, organic SEO should be used as a long term strategy and paid advertising for short term goals/campaigns. This way you should be able to maximize website profits without breaking the bank!
Organic Search vs PPC Advertising?
Weighing up the pros and cons of organic vs paid search it would seem that organic SEO wins hands down! The main reason for this is organic SEO is free whereas paid advertising has a cost associated with it in terms of time, effort, money and resources.
It is important to note however, that organic also has its own costs – time! You are competing with everyone else for organic traffic. Organic traffic can also be free if you are a blogger or content provider and gain organic links from other websites.
In addition, organic SEO requires constant upkeep in order to remain competitive i.e. writing new useful articles that link back to your site as well as sharing them across all of your social media channels on a regular basis, optimizing your images for image searches etc.
However, organic SEO does enable you to tap into potential customers who would not have found you otherwise (such as those searching via mobile devices) whereas PPC only attracts those who know exactly what they are looking for.
As organic search continues to evolve, both organic SEO and paid advertising will merge more and more – for better or worse! In the end, it is up to you to determine whether organic or paid leads are a better choice for your online business. However, as of current trends in SEO, organic traffic remains the best way of attracting potential customers/leads especially during these tough economic times. It’s free after all!