It is generally assumed that there are two main methods of internet marketing for businesses to consider when developing marketing strategies…’organic’ or ‘natural’ search engine optimisation and pay per click search engine advertising. In this blog we will briefly look at the two options and assess whether one is better than the other or if they are, in fact, two seperate, but complementary, methods of online marketing.
Search Engine Optimisation
Looking initially at ‘natural’ Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), we can outline this as the optimisation of a website for predefined keywords, in order to gain a high search engine position for each, through the optimisation of on-site content, tags and in-bound link campaigns. It is widely believed that users visit only the top 3 search results on a page and it is therefore vital to have a strong level of optimisation in place. Defining what goes into completing a successful SEO campaign, however, is a bit like asking how long is a piece of string? It is not always possible to say as it is something which varies from site to site but in general terms, it ensures that pages on a website are easy for search engine spiders to crawl and to understand, and once it has been understood, that the spiders rate it higher than competing websites for a certain keyword.
Pay Per Click Advertising
Pay Per Click advertising, on the other hand, is the ‘sponsored links’ which you often see at the top of, or to the side of, organic search results on Google. PPC allows one to ‘bid’ (pay) for keywords related to their product or service in order to receive ads placed in key positions on search result pages. However, it is widely known that these campaigns can be very costly, especially when working with those keywords which are highly competitive.
Which Is Best?
Which is best for the online marketing campaign of my website? I hear you ask…it is safe to say that both have their advantages and disadvantages, such as the fact that organic SEO can take up to 3 months to be fully working and that PPC can bring results within a matter of hours and that organic SEO generally offers a higher rate of return than PPC advertising. However, even though it is assumed that PPC campaigns is a simple method of reaching the top of search engines, it is widely thought that users are much more likely to visit organic results as opposed to paid results.
Even if you employ PPC for the marketing of your website, it is still advisable that you have your site optimised for organic search. This will actually help make your pages more relevant to the key phrases you are targeting. Good keyword relevancy and content that reads well and looks good on the page is just as important as appearing highly on the search engines. Product placement on pages is vital to the way your site will perform. It is good practice to make a few different versions of the product page so you can test these individually on PPC, this will help you determine the best layout of your page. PPC can be very useful to get a very quick insight in to the mind of your potential customers!
PPC will always ensure top results, however the point to make is that these come only at a price. A PPC ad for a highly competitive search is likely to cost a relatively large amount, and anyone can bid for the ad space if they bid high enough, but is it worth spending this sort of money if the site has not already been optimised for organic searches? This is the main point to get across, that even though organic SEO may take a number of months to be fully up and running, it is always advisable that a business carries this out before resorting to PPC advertising. It is all about thinking long term and organic Search Engine Optimisation is likely to give a higher return on investment than Pay Per Click advertising, which may turn out not to be necessary if a top position can be achieved on natural searches. Rather than paying out initially for PPC.
PPC can often be useful for short-term advertising, such as product sales but for long term online marketing, it is advisable that natural SEO is undertaken first. This will optimise a site so that it is ranking in organic searches and only then should PPC ads be considered for short term advertising.
All in all, natural Search Engine Optimisation and Pay Per Click advertising are not ‘one or the other’ online marketing methods, more tools for achieving different goals. It is common to see the two methods being utilised together, with SEO tackling long-term marketing and PPC tackling the short-term.
Have you been spending on Pay Per Click ads without a fully Search Engine Optimised website? Why don’t you drop us a line and one of our team can take a look at your site and give you some pointers free of charge.
