Growth Acquisition – Paid or Organic?
Which is better? Which is more effective? Should you be creating strategies for both? Let’s dive in.
First, what is the difference between SEO and Paid Search/Ads?
Organic search (SEO – Search Engine Optimization) is based on unpaid, natural rankings determined by search engine algorithms, and can be optimized with various SEO practices. In contrast, paid search allows you to pay to have your website displayed on the search engine results page when someone types in specific keywords or phrases.
In addition to paid search, paid ads can be shown on social media platforms or other websites through way of display or “banner” ads.
Should you have both acquisition strategies in place?
To answer that question, yes! But, to get the best bang for your buck – about 70% of your website’s traffic should be organic traffic. Leaving the other 30% for paid search & ads like AdWords, social media ads, display, retargeting, etc.
Marketing Rule #1: never rely on third party websites to dictate your own website’s health and traffic. This basically means if Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or any other platform shuts down for good… is your site going to take a huge hit because of it?
Why the 70/30% split?
Well for starters, organic traffic sends higher quality leads to your site and often results in lower bounce rates, more time spent on the site, and higher conversion rates. The best part about SEO is once you invest in it, it continues to pay dividends forever, where as paid search only gives you a return on your investment for the duration of the ad.
Curious about cost? A $1 investment in SEO (in the long run) will give you 10-20x higher return than a $1 investment in paid ads. To add to that, a paid ad will cost you more tomorrow than it does today…
Why? Because, any person who knows how to use social media can throw money at ads, and the return is instant which makes most think it’s working. But, those who are willing to put the time and effort into a long-term SEO strategy will ultimately be the ones to out perform those who don’t.
Why is organic traffic more valuable?
Think about it. Which potential customer would you rather have land on your site:
a) Someone who saw your ad on Facebook
b) Someone who is actively searching for what they are looking to buy
The answer is both! But, the latter is more likely to convert.
Even though social media platforms like Facebook allow you to hyper- target who sees your ads, your return on organic search is always going to be higher.
When in doubt
Put yourself in your customers shoes and create a strategy based on how you would like to find a product online. Times are changing, and the way we market is constantly changing. But, SEO is still king when it comes to driving quality traffic to your site.
Keep in mind: it’s going to become more important in the future once AI and technologies like Alexa take over completely… think about it.
If you don’t know how to get started and construct an SEM strategy, learn how! Or, feel free to message me with questions.
In all, always innovate.
Cheers – Dan