Organic vs. Paid Search: Think Collaboration Instead of Competition

Are you one of those online users that purposely does not click on any links that appear to have been bought? Do you pay little attention to paid advertisements that show up in your social media feeds and paid search? If so, that’s perfectly okay, and even normal.

However, as a business owner, you must realize that paid advertisements can still be worthwhile. Not every online user is keen on deciphering between paid search results and those that rank organically. Studies of consumer behaviors have proven this to be true, especially since paid advertisements are not always “in your face” and obviously identified.

An optimal online advertising campaign for any business, small or large, needs to take advantage of every opportunity that presents itself. That means when it comes to your search engine optimization strategy, it’s not a competition between whether you should focus on organic or paid results because both is best.

Why Pick Paid?

At one point, paid online advertisements showed up strictly as annoying pop-up browser windows. Nobody likes those, and for good reason, but times have changed. In accordance with the continuous growth of social media, sponsored ads are the new thing, which are essentially paid advertisements that show up in Facebook newsfeeds and Twitter timelines.

Sponsored ads work similarly to pay-per-click advertising campaigns in some ways. Facebook makes it incredibly easy for you to design and launch individual ads, which can be customizable on consumer preferences and demographics. That factor can dramatically affect the overall success rate of an ad campaign.

Sponsored ads are fairly simple to incorporate into your online advertising strategy. The added benefit to you is that they’re also affordable in cost. Online consumers benefit because the ads are not invasive and cause minimal disruption to Internet activity. Even paid advertisements on search engine results pages are becoming subtler. In other words, it means more people will be unable to distinguish between paid results and organic results.

Why Opt for Organic vs. Paid Search?

Organic search results will continue to be a critical part of any well-developed SEO strategy. The method by which you try to increase your rankings, however, is what will change due to algorithm updates.

Unlike paid search, organic results will only have an impact if you invest a significant amount of time and quality effort into improving your organic rankings. This includes activity on your business website and on external websites. It’s all about content these days.

Search Engine Impact

Consistent, quality, and consumer-friendly information will catch the attention of search engines, and that is what will boost your rankings. In addition, you also need to have an effective link building strategy in play.

Ultimately, online advertising is about brand awareness and driving traffic to your website, where consumers will hopefully become customers. In order to accomplish that, both paid and organic search results efforts need to be in implementation.