As Search Engines continue to flourish and the volume of traffic on the internet steadily grows, SEO and internet marketing are becoming increasingly more complex and competitive.
When it comes to online marketing though, there is a growing trend away from the quick fix solution of pay per click advertising (PPC) towards the slower, more progressive, but ultimately more sustainable Organic Search Marketing.
Pay per click advertising is based on a flat fee paid to a search engine host for a paid ranking page.
Each time the advert is clicked, advertisers pay the search website. PPC ads are listed on Google as ‘sponsored links’ and appear at the top or the upper right side of the page. Most of the larger, well- established search engines – Yahoo, Google and Bing, base their fees on a system called keyword bidding: the more popular the keyword, the more expensive it becomes.
On the positive side PPC advertising can be effective and the results can prove to be spectacularly quick and effective.
However, there is another side to the coin. Advertising can be expensive and important keywords can often lead inexorably to a keyword bidding war, with the highest bidder securing the prize. There is also anecdotal evidence of the existence of fraud, where rival advertisers have been known to click on your link without any intention to buy, thus costing you money for nothing. On top of this, success cannot always be guaranteed with PPC, and there is little evidence to suggest PPC advertising is an ultimate success in the long term.
On the opposite side of the spectrum is Organic Search marketing.
OSM is a more effective means of advertising one’s wares on the internet and leads to longer term success: however it can be a slow burner. OSM is based on techniques like link building, keyword optimisation, meta data optimisation and blogging. To increase your website’s organic search engine ranking, you will usually need the services of a reliable SEO company.
The advantages of organic search results are the price, which is usually based on a flat fee, and though it may take longer for your website’s profile to grow, there is compelling evidence that once the site has made its way up the rankings it is more likely to stay there as 80% of users have indicated they trust organic search engine results over PPC advertising. SEO and organic searching might not give the instant gratification that today’s younger generation craves for, but will prove to be more effective and sustainable in the longer term.
