Both organic and paid marketing efforts can benefit your company, but as your needs evolve, so do your strategies. Every business can benefit from mixed tactics and some of the basic elements of each of them are essential for successful marketing.
For example, there are many organic search engine optimization strategies that are actually just standard practice. They are essential to success, no matter how you drive traffic to your site. To help you better differentiate practices and determine which ones are best for your business, this article will offer a basic definition of organic SEO, PPC campaigns and address the potential economic impacts of each.
Search engine optimization for organic traffic
Just as the word means “all-natural” in the food industry, organic digital marketing uses free strategies to optimize your website and increase its ranking without paying for space.
Google is the number one search engine in the world, so all modern SEOs strive to improve a website for the company’s current algorithm. The algorithm is never fully known to the public, but it is a common set of practices that Google strongly prefers.
By optimizing your site according to the latest SEO best practices, you will be more likely to rank on the first page or win one of these desired snippets. A free SEO audit can help you determine which areas of your website are currently outdated or even work against your ranking in the SERP (search engine results pages).
Benefits
The most obvious advantage of an organic strategy is that it is free. If you have a low marketing budget, you are a small business or you are just starting to build a brand, then these practices are right for you. In addition, it is generally cheaper, leading to higher potential customer profits and a higher return on investment.
You shouldn’t even think about paying traffic to your site if it doesn’t have the basics of SEO. The results of good SEO are also long lasting. You will find that once you develop a strong organic strategy for your business, it will serve you for years to come. You’ll still need to make routine updates, but you won’t have to constantly repair your entire site or create campaigns from scratch to generate traffic.
Cons
The biggest disadvantage of natural SEO is that it takes a long time to bring great results. The type of economic growth that most companies want to see doesn’t come naturally in a few weeks through organic SEO, unless you’re lucky and fail to go viral somewhere on social media. Although targeting trends in your niche can regularly bring more traffic, the strongest results usually come a few months after optimizing your site and strategy.
Paid marketing and SEM
Paid marketing, namely PPC, is the act of paying customers to see your ad. PPC means pay per click, so you’ll be charged for showing your site at the top of the SERP for certain keywords and charging a small fee each time a viewer clicks on your URL.
This is a form of outbound marketing that can get your company’s name on the first page on the first day. You won’t have to wait long to see traffic rolling, but it may drop if your content doesn’t meet the expectations of your new visitors.
PPC benefits
The fastest way to build a brand is through exposure and you will achieve the highest level of awareness and visibility through PPC. Instead of using keywords to hope people find your site naturally, PPC campaigns allow you to reach your audience directly through targeted keywords retrieved from search engine results.
You will find out exactly what is popular among your target audience down to specific phrases. This can really help you attract a large number of people quickly and this can lead to a strong return on investment and an even higher contribution margin.
PPC cons
Pay-per-click marketing is expensive for any business, which can be completely ineffective if you run ads but have poor quality content. It takes a lot of thought and planning to be successful, so you need to make sure you’re ready to support an influx of potential users before you pay for clicks.
Despite the added preparation, however, PPC has the fastest twists. If visibility is your biggest challenge, then PPC is probably the best marketing solution. Just know that if you don’t have content that converts, you’ll either lose your entire budget to be seen, or you’ll lose a lot more than you gain.
Which strategy is best for your business: PPC vs. SEO?
Good SEO never goes out of style. No matter how much money you want to make or how much you have to spend, you should always turn to organic efforts first. They last longer and generate traffic for years, while PPC campaigns end as soon as you stop funding them.
Depending on your industry, pay per click can be relatively affordable or a huge expense. Organic practices are always free, whether you are a start-up or a business. Each strategy has its pros and cons and you should never consider one or the other as a complete solution for your company’s marketing efforts. To address the impact on profits, you need to create a quality CRM that tracks how effective your current efforts are, where potential customers come from, and how you can optimize your current strengths.
For companies without a marketing division, in-depth research is required to see the best results. Hiring a qualified digital agency to manage your entire copy of your site and blog content is the best way to rank more naturally, and it will also lead to a higher conversion rate in all future PPC campaigns.
The bottom line is that a good digital marketing strategy contains both free and paid components. They complement each other instead of competing with each other. By integrating the most effective measures for your unique company and audience, you will be able to earn more from potential customers and see a higher, sustainable conversion rate.