Paid vs. Organic Strategies

Organic Search:?Organic Search results are the unpaid sections in the search engine results page that are determined based on the content’s relevance to the keyword query rather than because of Search Engine Marketing. A website can take advantage of organic search by presenting the website to Google to be filed and afterward making website pages that depend on specific keywords that the site is focusing on. A website’s organic rank does not cost any amount every month. The main expense is the time and exertion to get to that ranking.?

Paid Search:?Paid searches are advertisements. Search engines will show ads close to organic search results. This is the primary way search engines make a profit. Advertisements are almost consistently shown at the very top of a search result, or in a left/right sidebar. Paid search works on a pay-per-click model. Paid search is a kind of contextual advertising where site owners pay a charge to have their site shown in top search engine results page placement.

Benefits of Paid Social Media Marketing

There are several advantages to paid social media marketing. This type of marketing has quickly become one of the most popular forms of digital marketing, as it can be highly effective.

• Paid SMM expands your audience reach.?Paid social media marketing allows you to reach target customers whom you might not otherwise have had access to through organic methods. You can cast a wider net for potential customers, increasing your overall visibility. This is a great way to attract new consumers and increase your social media following.
• Paid SMM increases brand awareness.?Paid social media campaigns can increase your brand awareness among both new and existing customers. Each time someone sees your ad, your brand becomes top of mind. Providing valuable content through your paid social media advertisements can increase consumer trust and brand awareness.
• Paid SMM can be customized to retarget consumers.?Many platforms, such as Facebook, give you the ability to customize your ads based on consumer behavior. For example, if a user visits a certain webpage or product, you can target them with an ad related to that experience. This is a great way to retarget potential customers and get them in your purchasing funnel.

Cons of Paid Social Media Marketing

1. Ongoing Expense

Once your budget runs out, your ads will stop showing. In order to keep your ads showing in the paid search results, you need to maintain an ongoing budget. Unlike SEO where there is an upfront cost followed by little to no maintenance cost, PPC is never free.

The size of your budget helps determine how frequently your ads are shown. A low budget may result in your ads being shown only a few times a day. Alternatively, a large ad budget that isn’t optimized well could result in a big expense with few leads.

2. Ongoing Management

PPC is not a hands-off process. Sure, your ads can run on their own and generate traffic with little interference. However, the success of your ads and the utilization of your budget depends on your ads reaching the right people.

In Google AdWords, you can view the search terms that triggered your ad. It’s very common to see terms that are not related to your business at all. Regularly reviewing these search terms and adding negative keywords when necessary will help keep your ad showing to the right audience, and preserve your budget.

3. Requires Experience

PPC is very easy to get started with. However, for the best optimization of your ad account, it helps to have experience. Your ads may perform just fine even if you have zero PPC experience, but there are?many tools and features you could be utilizing to help your ads perform better.

Google AdWords offers?certifications?to help users understand how to use their tools. The certification process does take some time to complete and can be overwhelming for someone with no PPC experience.

Benefits of organic social media marketing

There are several advantages to organic social media marketing. Any organization can use this type of marketing as a way to?develop an online presence.

• Organic SMM is free.?OK, it’s not totally free; organic social media marketing will still cost you time. However, organic social media marketing is cheaper than its paid counterpart in terms of ad dollars. This is especially notable for businesses that don’t have a team in place to effectively manage a paid campaign or for companies with a limited budget.
• Organic SMM builds your brand’s authentic reputation.?Organic social media posts help build a brand’s online reputation over the long term. You can post content that is less salesy and more entertaining to keep your audience engaged. Since many consumers view organic content as more trustworthy than paid posts, it’s a great way to build your credibility, reputation and brand awareness.
• Organic SMM allows you to engage directly with consumers.?Social media is a direct line to your consumers and followers, and it can be used to personally interact with them. Organic social media actions, such as answering questions and responding to or sharing feedback, are an effective way to communicate with consumers, resolve concerns and build trust.

Cons of Organic

1. Difficult to Achieve

SEO is not easy by any means. Think of how many websites exist today, and how many of those might be the same or similar to your business. Every one of these websites is competing to rank on the first page.

How web users interact with the content on your website affects your organic ranking. This is where understanding search intent comes into play.?Search intent is the user's purpose for conducting a search.?This can include looking for more information on a topic, finding directions to a certain location, or looking to make a purchase.

To optimize for search intent, you have to understand and incorporate words and phrases in your content from their queries and most importantly provide a solution. For example, someone looking to learn about SEO would probably type something like "how to rank for keywords" or "how to rank higher on google." Your article should include quality content that reflects terms like this and answer them by educating them on the fundamentals of SEO instead of simply putting in high-volume keywords.

2. Less Initial Traffic

Because SEO takes time to perfect, your site will not rank on the first page organically right out of the gate.?Your website content needs time to build credibility?as it competes with other sites that have been around longer and have already established authority.

To increase specific keyword rankings and get more traffic to your pages, you must optimize your content with keywords and phrases in a natural way that is still centered on providing value to the reader. By creating content around key topics in your niche and by using focused, informational keywords you will attract people that will find your content useful and valuable. And if a user finds your content valuable, then Google will too and will reward you with a higher ranking. Focusing on quality, educational pieces will also get your content shared on social media platforms and garner strong, relevant backlinks, both of which are high ranking factors to Google.??

3. Volatility

Just because you rank on the first page of the search results one day, does not guarantee that you’ll still be there the next day. If you track your search ranking with tools such as Google Analytics, you may see your ranking go up and down repeatedly in a short time.

This can be caused by several things. Other websites are vying to make it to the first page organically, thus creating competition. Stay on top of your competitors's content tactics and link building strategies to predict their next moves so you can adjust your strategy if needed.?

Changes to a search engine’s algorithm can also affect how your site ranks. Consistently monitor keyword rankings as well as impressions and clicks in Google Search Console for negative movement. You will be notified in your Google Webmaster account if the drop is caused by an algorithm update or a penalty from Google.

Interesting Facts:

• Organic Search is 5.66 times better than Paid Search.
• 1 out of 10 blog posts are intensifying, which means their organic search traffic increases with time.
• Maximum search questions are 4 words or longer.
• Paid Click-Through Rate has seen a minute increase in performance from 2015 (3.38%) to 2018 (3.82%). (Source- JumpShot Clickstream Data)

Used together, SEO and PPC can improve website performance, increase leads, and boost revenue. But it takes time to find the right balance of PPC and SEO that works well for your business. There is no one-size-fits-all solution.