When searching online, you may notice two different types of listings appear on the results page: organic vs paid search. Both can drive traffic to your website, but they operate in different ways, with varying benefits and costs.
Below we highlight what each of them is and the key differences between organic vs paid search.
Table of Contents
What Is Organic Search?
Organic search refers to the unpaid listings that appear on a search engine results page (SERP).
These are not ads and no one has paid to be shown in that position. Instead, they have been deemed most relevant to your search by Google.
These rankings are largely determined by SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), which involves optimising your website to align with search engine algorithms.
For example, if you search for “best pizza in Soho,” Google will try to show you websites that are most relevant to your search, based on factors like how well the website answers your search, how reliable the website is and how easy the website is to use.
How Organic Search Works
Organic search results are ranked by algorithms based on relevance, quality, and authority rather than payment. You can improve your organic rankings, by doing the below:
Keyword Optimisation
Identify what keywords and phrases your potential customers will search for.
Once identified, include these in the content across your website.
Create Quality Content
Create valuable, informative, and engaging content that addresses your potential customers’ questions. This will help to increase your relevance in Google’s eyes.
User-friendly
Make sure your website loads quickly, as this can deter individuals from your website and can also negatively impact your ranking with Google.
Remember to test your website on a mobile and tablet to ensure it is user-friendly across all devices.
The Benefits of Organic Search
Cost-effective
While organic ranking can initially take time and money to build, once you have optimised it, organic traffic essentially becomes free, making it a long-term investment.
Credibility
When people search for something, those listings that do not appear with ‘ad’ or ‘sponsored’ are reported to be more trusted by individuals as there is no financial investment and these listings have earned their position through merit.
Sustainability
As we have mentioned while SEO can take time to build, the results can be long-lasting, especially if you maintain your website’s quality and do not just ignore it.
What is important to note is that while organic search is a long-term strategy and requires time, effort, and consistency to see results, there’s no guarantee of a top ranking. That is why you need someone who specialises in this area to ensure what you are doing is getting the right results.
What Is Paid Search?
When you search for something on Google, you might notice a few listings marked as “sponsored”. These are paid search results.
How Does Paid Search Work?
Businesses choose the keywords that are related to their products or services, for example, an estate agent would choose ‘estate agent in’ or ‘property in’ and bid on these keywords. When someone searches for those keywords, their ads have a high chance of being displayed, and the business pays each time someone clicks on their ad (hence the term pay-per-click).
We mention above a ‘high chance’ because bidding does not simply mean your ad gets put at the top. Rather the position of your ad on the search results page is determined by a combination of factors including the amount of money you bid, the relevance of your ad to the search query, and the individual’s experience on your landing page e.g. fast load time.
Learn more about how paid search works and how to set it up in our blog here.
The Benefits of Paid Search
Immediate visibility
If you haven’t had time to invest in optimising your website or have a low-quality score, it does not matter with paid search. Paid search offers you the ability to be noticed immediately despite these circumstances.
It is also beneficial for those with short-term campaigns such as the launch of a product or a summer sale.
Targeting
You can be clever with your campaigns, and have them only target those people you want.
For example, you can choose specific demographics, locations, and even times of day where your ads appear.
Measurable ROI (Return on Investment)
When you run a campaign, you’ll have access to a dashboard displaying key metrics like engagement rate, CPC, CTR, and more. These metrics are extremely helpful for identifying areas in your campaigns that may need adjustment to improve performance such as descriptions, titles or budget.
Disadvantages of PPC
Cost of Paid Search
Paid search can be expensive, especially if you are bidding for competitive keywords.
Additionally, paid search will only deliver results if you spend money. Once you stop paying, your ads will stop running and appearing on search results.
Organic vs Paid Search: Which Is Better?
The truth is, it’s not about organic vs paid search, it’s about finding the right balance.
Of course, it depends on what your goals and circumstances are, but a successful marketing strategy usually involves finding the right balance between the two and effectively using both approaches.
For example, while you are optimising your website for SEO, you could use paid search to drive traffic to your website initially. Then as your organic ranking improves, you might find that you can reduce the amount you spend on paid search, using it only for certain campaigns.
Organic vs Paid Search
If you’re interested in learning more about organic vs paid search or need some advice, contact us today for a no-obligation discussion. We would be happy to answer any of your questions.
