SEO vs. PPC

What is the Difference Between Paid and Organic Content?

Which is best for you and your business? Here are 3 pros and cons of paid and organic strategies for businesses. Before analyzing paid and #organicstrategies, it is important to distinguish the difference between its content. The figure below is an infographic illustrating how paid vs. natural content is displayed.

Figure 1: (Stricchiola, Spencer, Enge, & Fishkin, 2012)

Paid Strategies

Pros

Timing is one of the biggest advantages to paid strategies. An Ad can be created and immediately put in front of its intended audience. This can be beneficial to a company if they are looking for immediate results.

Another benefit of #PPC is its ability to target audiences. This means that paid strategies can assist with buyer influence better than organic strategies. A company will essentially have a quality over quantity approach when using Ads. Even if the Ad gets fewer clicks than an organic post, the clicks will create higher purchase intent. "You can make your ads only visible to a certain geographical location, demographic, and much more. You can even customize the time of day your ad is seen" (Armistead, n.d.). This assists a company with higher #conversion rates and data collection.

Paid strategies are also easily trackable. This allows for Ad creators to make adjustments to customize a company's Ad and therefore, maximize results. Split tests can be performed to see what their target audience responds to the most. Tracking results will also assist with #budgeting such as ROI.

Cons

The biggest disadvantage to paid strategies is the consumer's lack of trust. Banner blindness has increased in web users, and therefore lack of visibility can be a disadvantage in comparison to organic strategies."The top four sponsored slots are equivalent in views to being ranked at 7–10 in natural search in terms of visibility and click-through" (Stricchiola, Spencer, Enge, & Fishkin, 2012). This means paid strategies have a smaller awareness potential even when they are ranked above the natural search results.

Paid strategies can become costly. PPC stands for "pay per click". This means a company must pay every time someone clicks the ad, even if they are not an ideal customer. The purpose for Ads should be to introduce customers into the buying process."...make sure you maximize your ROI by knowing how to capture and nurture those leads when they land on your site" (Gregorio, 2014). Therefore, targeting an audience properly is essential with PPC to maximize ROI.

Lack of longevity is another con to PPC. Once an Ad stops running, a company's position of visibility disappears. This means it is important to have a purpose and goal behind an Ad campaign, rather than just for the purpose of continuous awareness. Additionally, it is important to have a qualified Ad manager to optimize the Ad's results. However, successful results are never guaranteed.

Organic Strategies

Pros

Organic strategies are completely free. An example of an organic strategy is posting consistent content to have a higher visibility potential. Another example is,"improving your websites position for specific keywords or search terms within Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing" (Si, 2018). Cost effectiveness can be a major advantage especially to start up companies.

When utilizing free organic strategies, the rank in #SERPs (Search Engine Results Page) will have a higher visibility potential than PPC. "85% of searchers click on natural results" (Stricchiola, Spencer, Enge, & Fishkin, 2012). This is beneficial to companies by improving awareness with free promotion that never disappears. In addition to constant promotion, competitive advantages will increase by decreasing the competition's organic visibility. "...the more pages that you have ranking highly in search engines, the less likely your competitors are to appear on the same page as you" (Si, 2018).

Trust is another big advantage to organic posts. There is less sales breath on a company's content when it is not labeled as an Ad. Additionally, when a company has a high ranking on SERPs when using organic strategies, they acquire a higher domain authority than a company using PPC.

Cons

One disadvantage to organic strategies is the timing required to #rank in SERPs. Visibility results do not happen immediately. "You might not see results for weeks, even months, and it does take time to create content that is engaging and unique enough to rank highly in search engines" (Si, 2018). This is because the #SearchEngine used must recognize your site and develop the relevant search terms based on the keywords, content, and other optimization factors a company has performed. However, there is unmatched benefits when this does occur.

Organic strategies are also difficult to measure. This is because, unlike PPC, there is no audience targeted when performing organic strategies. It is more difficult for a company to determine who is clicking on the organic content and why. Therefore, data collection is minimal compared to PPC.

Although advertisers have the ability to create constant promotion using organic strategies, unpredictable rankings and updates create a disadvantage to companies. "With organic SEO, the results can often fluctuate dependent on season, user trends or socio-economic events" (Si, 2018). Fluctuating rankings on SERPs and updated algorithms can decrease a company's visibility, and therefore #CTR.

Final Thoughts

In an ideal world, a company should integrate both strategies at some point in their brand or product life cycle. Ads should be used if companies have disposable income, want quick results, and have a specific purpose that needs to be translated to a targeted audience. Organic strategies should be consistently used by all companies for longevity and overall awareness. However, expectations of organic results should not be time sensitive.

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References:

Armistead, H. (n.d.). PPC Pros and Cons (And How to Make Paid Ads Work for You). https://www.duboseweb.com/blog/the-pros-and-cons-of-ppc-marketing.

Gregorio, J. (2014, April 23). The Pros and Cons of PPC Marketing. https://digitalmarketingphilippines.com/the-pros-and-cons-of-ppc-marketing/.

Si. (2018, March 28). The Pros and Cons of Organic SEO VS PPC. https://www.one2create.co.uk/blog/pros-and-cons-organic-seo/.

Stricchiola, J., Spencer, S., Enge, E., & Fishkin, R. (2012). The Art of SEO, 2nd Edition. https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/the-art-of/9781449324865/ch01s08.html.