While some marketers and advertisers might think of paid search as a waste of money and organic search as the key, others disagree. The “organic search vs paid search” battle has been waging for more than a decade. However, it’s vital to know the value of both.
The Benefits Of Organic Search
While you might be able to guess at some of the benefits of using organic search, it’s good to get a concrete understanding of how it helps you. The best way is to lay everything out in detail.
First, you get the benefit of perceived credibility and the trust that goes with that from the people searching for you. The higher your search rankings are, the better your perception of authority and leadership within your industry will appear. The higher that trust is and the more people click through, the higher you’ll be ranked and the more your clicks will grow.
Organic traffic is also outside of following immediate and short term trends, meaning that good content can be evergreen. When you write content that’s built to last and get the traffic to go with that, you’ll have a long-term rankability strategy. After you acquire those high rankings, it’s much easier to keep that ranking and get your other content to rank for that as well, which builds upon itself.
Your click-through rates will improve with organic search improvements. If you’re not showing off the immediate purchase or sales intent, then you seem like a trustworthy source of information in your industry. When you work in a big-ticket industry with a long buying cycle, this is the kind of thing that can pay off.
Lastly, you end up doing yourself a service with inbound marketing when you focus on organic search. When you develop content that ranks organically, you’ll gather results for those high involvement purchases from the top of the funnel and as users move down.
What To Watch Out For With Organic Search
Organic search isn’t as easy or as cost-effective as pawning off the work to a search engine for paid results. Despite the fact that “paid” search might seem more costly, it’s not as costly as spending a day tracking down keywords to try to rank for them.
You need to have lots of time to do the work with organic search. If the keywords you’re working with are extremely competitive, don’t be surprised if it takes you months or even years to get the SERP rankings you’re looking for. When it comes to appearing in those “position zero” areas or knowledge panels, that can take even longer.
You also need lots of resources for getting the kinds of rankings that you’re looking for. It requires you to create content and to use your SEO tactics to achieve it, which may take training and research. Your internal staff might need to take some online courses or start reading up on what to do or else you’ll have to pay external contractors, which will be costly.
Paid Search Benefits
Your paid search results are the kinds of first position ads that you see every day, whether or not you read them as ads. It’s common practice for businesses to pay to have their ads displayed at the top when searchers use a specific keyword. This won’t guarantee traffic but it certainly builds credibility as you’ve been willing to pay more than anyone else for that position.
You’re going to save lots of time with this tactic, by putting your ad right at the top and targeting your audience quickly. This targeting can have a serious degree of accuracy, as tools are getting even better at geo-targeting, income targeting, looking at age, or industry. You won’t waste a penny targeting anyone but the people who fall into those categories.
You also get a guaranteed CTR when you use paid search. High purchase intent searches can get many more clicks than standard organic results because buyers are motivated and want to get the job done. PPC accounts for a small amount of search traffic but a large amount of the money earned via SEO services.
The Drawbacks Of Paid Ads
While you can get around a number of the frustrating issues with organic search by using paid ads, it’s not all roses and lollipops. There are some important drawbacks to consider. There are considerable reasons why people skip out on paid ads, beyond the cost.
However, it’s important to note that this can be a costly venture. The bid price for a click on your ads can be high if there’s a lot of competition. The catch is that you may not want to be in the market for a paid ad unless there is a fair amount of traffic that’s been qualified.
There’s a reason to be distrustful of their value. Not only will your traffic and ranking from ads not count, but that ad disappears as soon as you stop paying and you have to start ranking from wherever you are.
On top of that, consumers don’t always trust paid ads. Savvy consumers know when they’re seeing a paid ad and will avoid them. They’ll put more trust in organic rankings.
So Why Look At Is As Organic Search Vs Paid Search?
If you’re looking at ranking as organic search vs paid search, you need to adjust your perspective. Why not consider both together? They can complement your efforts and paid search will build organic results as you grow!
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