Search engine listing: natural vs paid
Getting your business listed on search engines is no longer a question of why. Rather, it is a matter how and how soon. And, knowing the difference between paying for placement (Pay-Per Click) and earning your placement “organically” (Search Engine Optimisation) is key.
There are typically two ways to get listed on search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN: organic (natural or free placement) or paid (Pay-per-click or sponsored listing). Organic placement is like having your business mentioned in a news editorial resulting in free publicity and potentially wide coverage. While paid placement is synonymous to paying for a half-page magazine advertisement next to the news editorial.
Free placements on search engines
Organic placement is the search engine result that your website earns for following certain web design standards, coding techniques and web marketing strategies that draw search engines to your site. This includes your web content, titles, use of text instead of images, the programming of your site and the number and quality of link exchanges you have set up with other relevant and reputable sites. Using a secret algorithm, the search engines look at these combination of factors and rank your website within their results pages at no cost.
>>Read our Top 10 Website Optmisation Tips
Advertising on search engines
Paid placement works through a bidding system known as “Pay-Per-Click” (PPC) where advertisers bid for the opportunity to be listed near the top of the Sponsored Links area. In PPC, an advertiser pays each time online customers click on their website link from that search engine. If implemented properly, it can deliver immediate results and is typically a cost-effective way of driving traffic to a website quickly.
Is one approach better than the other?
That depends on what you’re trying to achieve.
Paid placement or PPC is the quickest and most effective way to get immediate attention and listing on the search engines. It is a simpler concept to understand and, unlike many marketing activities, the return can be calculated accurately. It also has the potential to give business owners and managers an immediate hit.
PPC is ideal for launching seasonal or targeted campaigns such as new product launches, event-related promotions (Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Father’s Day), limited time offers and geographically targeted promotions. Or when there is a need to drive website traffic immediately.
Organic placement, on the other hand, gets you more visitors. Organic results are statistically more popular, used more often and are much more cost effective over the long run. While they take longer to achieve (up to 3 months) requiring a long journey of content writing, quality linking, and general back-end efforts to gain the trust and respect of the search engines, it is all worth the effort. Various studies show that a prospective buyer will use organic searches 60% – 80% of the time. Moreover, organic search results gather up to six times more clicks than paid advertising. This is because buyers tend to trust search engines more than the advertisers. Whereas the effects of paid placement wear off quickly, organic search marketing has a real impact in the medium to long term, provided efforts are maintained. Many companies will find the longevity and substance of organic search a real benefit.
The final word
The best marketing campaigns combine both approaches because each presents different strengths that work well together. Once a website is ranking well organically, using a PPC campaign to gather additional presence within the search engine results can boost your traffic and help to keep qualified visitors rolling in to your website.
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