Organic SEO and Pay Per Click - What’s the Difference?

If you’re new to search engine optimization (SEO)  and have been looking for proven ways to promote your website, chances are you’ve come across two methods - organic SEO and pay per click advertising.  But many sites specializing in search engine optimization or pay per click (PPC) don’t go into much detail explaining the differences, pros and cons of each. 

Today’s post on iElectrify aims to do just that.

Organic SEO - The “all natural” and free alternative

Organic search engine optimization has been around since the beginning of the web and the first handful of search engines.  It refers to the design, layout and optimization of your site’s content and images to rank highly whenever someone visitors your site and clicks a link that’s typically on the left side of the search engine pages.

The organic SEO rankings in the image above are shaded green, while the paid (sponsored) listings are shaded beige.  When you click a link on the left side of Google’s search results, you’re visiting a site where the owner or company has invested considerable time and effort to make sure their site appears near the top.  It’s rare that pages like this go to the top on their own without any directed, concentrated effort on the part of the SEO optimization firm or webmaster.

The pros to working with organic SEO are that it’s completely free and you’re likely to stay in the same ranking with proper care and maintenance of your website.  The downside is that it can take time to achieve a good ranking (sometimes several months) as your site is found, indexed and visited often by the search engines.

Paid SEO - Instant traffic, at a cost

Paid SEO, pay-per-click or PPC as it’s commonly known involves writing short ads and paying for certain keywords that will attract users to your website.  There’s much more involved than meets the eye, and if you’re not careful with your marketing budget or choose your keywords wisely, you could be in for a bidding war with your competitors. 

 To truly succeed with pay per click marketing, you’ll want to look closely at your online sales process and create landing pages for your best keywords, make sure you have a great shopping cart to handle orders easily and give your customers every reason to come back again. 

The upside to using Pay Per Click is that you have the potential to start getting instant traffic to your site without having to wait for the search engine to find you (as is the case with organic SEO).  You can test several marketing campaigns, different ads and landing pages to see which one(s) perform best - although you’ll likely need to hire a qualified web design professional to help you keep track of it all!

Yes, You Can Do Both!

For most new websites, it’s a good idea to start out using Pay Per Click to help gain exposure to your site and optionally build your mailing list.   While this is going on, you’ll want to participate in forums, comment on blogs, get involved in a couple of social networking sites for your particular industry and help drive traffic to your site naturally (don’t forget to add Google Analytics and a Sitemap for extra exposure — your web designer can do this for you).

In the end you’ll have a powerful two-pronged approach that’s guaranteed to bring you qualified, targeted traffic to your website in a way that’s easy on your budget.

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