Organic Search Results vs. Pay-Per-Click Campaigns

Getting visitors to find your sight can be achieved by one of two methods; pay-per-click (PPC) and organically. Pay-per-click means you are paying Google, Yahoo, Bing and others for high placement on search results. Usually these spots are called “Sponsored Links”. These results are based on bidding for keyword phrases. More popular keyword phrases cost more. For example, a word like “Computer” might cost $5-10. But a keyword phrase like “Computer motherboard repair” will cost significantly less.

Organic or Natural search results are earned by having unique content that is properly optimized. Other factors that can help your website earn high organic page placement are blogging, proper header tags, inbound links to your site, social media and more. Earning page position this way in the search engines takes more time and is not as simple as paying Google. But investing in the content and growth of your website will drive better leads to your site and it will give you more credibility with the search engines and within your community.

This is true because searchers are more likely to click on organic search results and they are more likely to be converted into potential customers. I believe that an organic click is four times more likely to contact you than a pay-per-click. But PPC is quicker and easier. Organic results take time and effort. Does your website have a content management system? If it doesn’t, you probably can’t add ongoing content to your website. And it might be difficult to optimize each page too. Do you have a Facebook Fan page that is automatically populated with your latest blog entry?

Pay-per-click can get you immediate results. But it can also be very expensive. You might find that it eats quite heavily into your profit margins. And the money you are spending on a PPC campaign does nothing to make your website better and more attractive to the search engine. You also have to put time into managing the PPC campaign so that you are not wasting money on poorly performing or expensive keyword phrases.

The long-term strategy should be to wean yourself away from PPC. PPC is fine but as your site matures, you will find that you can earn better results for less money organically. A proper site needs to have great features that make it easy to develop and mature.  And the main way to get great search results? Write new content to your site. This is the best advice I can give my clients. But they usually don’t have a site that makes it easy. And they don’t have the time to write. So, we do it for them.

Create a great website and your clients will come. Start with PPC if you have to. But your long term goal should be to earn first-page organic placement by having a great website with great, optimized content.