Which search channel is good? Organic search,paid search or social media? Is it better to use paid search over organic marketing for small businesses? It seems like a simple question, but the answer is very complicated. While all methods have specific benefits and drawbacks,for a small business, one method must be much favorable. Let’s discuss some of the differences and finally consider the best approach.
Marketers look at SEO to be very effective with 82% saying yes, SEO is effective and another 42% of this group reporting that SEO effectiveness is significantly rising.
Organic Search
Whenever you open a new tab or window on your browser and type a question into the search box for Google or any other search engine, the resulting links that appear below the ads are “organic results.”
These usually appear based on the content quality and the page of the content. Traffic that results from people finding your links from these results is referred to as “organic search” traffic.Organic traffic is the best source of traffic. Marketers love to go for SEO and content assets so that they gain a high traffic. This boosts their search engine rankings. The goal is always to appear in the first page and then move to the top three rankings for specific keywords. One of the reasons for this is organic search is dependent on visibility. Here are reasons for why organic search is considered the best:
Benefits of Organic Search
• Gain Trust, Credibility
When you have a good search engine rank, then there comes the notion of credibility on the side of searchers. Having a high search ranking means you command leadership and authority. This kind of perception leads to more trust and an increased click-through rate on the site.
• Inbound marketing
Organic search strategy needs marketers to create content assets to achieve it. It is vital for businesses that want to involve in higher purchases.
• Click through rates
Organic search builds click-through rates. This is essential for small companies with longer purchasing cycle.
• Evergreen
If the type of content that ranks better is evergreen, then the rankings will develop an evergreen presence.
• Ranking
Once you have a high rank, then it’s easy to maintain those rankings. You get an authority status and build trust.
The drawback with organic search is that it needs time to get indexed and begin to generate traffic. If you are just looking for quick gratification, then this might not be the best place for you.
Paid Search(PPC)
Paid Search results involve advertisements. A business pays so that their ads are featured when users search for specific keywords. The ads usually appear at the top, bottom and within the local searchresults.
Paid Ads benefits
• Targeting
PPC ads can be customized to reach a particular audience.
• Click through rates
Searches that involve terms with huge purchase intent for example product will get a lot of clicks than organic results.
• Time:
Paid ads appear on top of rankings immediate you complete paying for the ad.
The drawback with PPC is that it costs money.The bid price for each keyword varies depending on the competition of the keyword. Also, the ad disappears immediately you stop paying for it. Another thing with the paid ads is that consumers don’t trust it most of the time. They trust more the organic search.
Social Media
Many businesses nowadays publish content on social media platforms as a way to build their audiences and gain more traffic to their websites. The power of social media is very essential when it comes to generating traffic. And small businesses are using this as a way to reach out to a big audience. When you use it to the maximum potential, social media offers tremendous advantages such as:
• Increased sales
• Reduced costs
• Wider customer engagement
• Enhance ranking in search engines
• Good chance to get customer feedback
• Improved networking connections with customers
Not every social network can be suited to every business. Sometimes you might end up losing time and money if you didn’ tprepare well. Some of the drawbacks include;
• Extra resources might be needed
• Reduced benefits for your business if you don’t have a clear marketing strategy
• Social media requires daily monitoring
• Greater online exposure might invite risks in your business
Finally, for many businesses, the perfect approach is a combination of organic and the paid search results. As far as organic search is still the number one source of traffic and one that istrusted by most people. It’s essential for small business owners to engage SEO on their site to boost the sale of their products and services. Don’t forget that
• Google gets more than 63, 000 searches per second at any given time of the day. This is according to Internet Live Stats.
- About 9.61%of marketers believe that enhancing SEO and growing their organic presence is their top market priority. You can follow this link to read more https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics).
- 3.50% of the searchq ueries have more than four words according to a research done by WordStream. (https://www.hubspot.com/marketing-statistics)