Organic vs paid for

[Bobjob]

Please forgive me if I say something incorrect. I'm talking about stuff I don't know anything about.

What is everyones opinion on paid for listing on google vs organic. I click on paid for maybe 1% of the time.

[Harold Mansfield]

Best answer I can give is "both" or "It depends". PPC is expensive these days. You can't even bid on low volume searches anymore. It's not even worth it if you don't know exactly what you're doing, are committed, and have the kind of budget to build, fine tune, and run your campaign for a significant time.

Honestly, you also need to have a little money to blow just to learn. Blog articles and tutorials can only teach you so much. Until you start running ads and seeing what it takes to actually be listed, you can't properly gauge if it's right for you.

I've clicked on paid results from my phone that had the call button on them. I do click some on my computers, it just depends.

Banner and display ads are dying. People tune them out and consider ads in general intrusive thanks to the way advertisers have treated us over the years. Many people also use ad blockers.

All of that is just my opinion based on what I've been seeing and have experienced using PPC. I believe in advertising. Just not sure I believe in search engine PPC anymore. Social Media ads are a different story.

Organic is the default. You should be striving for that anyway. That's just part of being online.

[BNB]

Organic is nice if you can get to the top. But lots of people click ads now, it's the first 4 results typically on Google. PAID. So when people talk about being #1 on Google... organic.... that's nice, but I'm actually beating them with paid results.

I just checked a local search for my industry, and the first 4 results are paid, I'm #1. Then local results, I'm #1 there, too. Then organic listings. Plus sponsored product listings on the right. There is a LOT that takes the users attention away from organic and it doesn't produce like it used to. I started with organic, I was in the top spots almost across the board. I actually get more paid traffic now than I ever did with the best spots in organic.

The challenge is that you really do have to know what you are doing, like Harold said. You can lose, big, real fast on paid. And if it's a tough market, it could take tens of thousands of dollars just to make a dent and learn paid advertising. I see people come and go all the time, and just a few that stick around for years. Paid CPC advertising is not easy or for the faint of heart. Not on a national scale at least.

[Harold Mansfield]

Organic is nice if you can get to the top. But lots of people click ads now, it's the first 4 results typically on Google. PAID. So when people talk about being #1 on Google... organic.... that's nice, but I'm actually beating them with paid results.

I just checked a local search for my industry, and the first 4 results are paid, I'm #1. Then local results, I'm #1 there, too. Then organic listings. Plus sponsored product listings on the right. There is a LOT that takes the users attention away from organic and it doesn't produce like it used to. I started with organic, I was in the top spots almost across the board. I actually get more paid traffic now than I ever did with the best spots in organic.

The challenge is that you really do have to know what you are doing, like Harold said. You can lose, big, real fast on paid. And if it's a tough market, it could take tens of thousands of dollars just to make a dent and learn paid advertising. I see people come and go all the time, and just a few that stick around for years. Paid CPC advertising is not easy or for the faint of heart. Not on a national scale at least.

How long did it take you to get your "formula" down before you started seeing the results that you see now? Also, how much would you say you spent before you got it down to that formula and strategy?

You don't have to give us details about your campaign or budget, but I'm always interested in hearing real experiences with Adwords from people who've stuck it out and learned what works for them.

[trunker]

Adwords or PPC advertising has a learning curve that can be expensive. Getting on the first page of google (organic) CAN be expensive if you are in a competitive niche. It can also be very easy if there is low competition.

It is also important to remember that the #1 position on google generally gets about 30% of all the clicks, #2 14%, #3 10% and continues even lower for positions #4-#10.

[Harold Mansfield]

Money aside ( and it feels strange even saying that because money determines a lot), having both is hitting it out of the park. Organic and overall online marketing in general will give you more opportunities to be found, and it's a solid online foundation. Paid helps you win faster ( when done correctly), but it only works as long as you're paying.

[BNB]

40% of the people don't understand the difference, so paid is a great choice if you want to get seen and heard fast.
If you have money and someone who can really optimize your campaign, paid will do wonders instead you having to compete with big names to win the position.

In any other case (not having a big budget) organic will do great, but it takes a lot of time.

Even those who do understand the difference, it doesn't matter. I click paid AdWords all the time. Being that I spend a lot on AdWords, I'm conscious and respectful about making sure I only click ads that are very targeted to me, but they are a great resource. In my experience, the more successful businesses tend to use AdWords, which means you end up with a good product/service. In essence, it's a win-win for Google. They provide better results since AdWords are naturally super-highly targeted, by brands that have a solid foundation, and Google makes enough money to build self-driving cars :)

[BNB]

How long did it take you to get your "formula" down before you started seeing the results that you see now? Also, how much would you say you spent before you got it down to that formula and strategy?

You don't have to give us details about your campaign or budget, but I'm always interested in hearing real experiences with Adwords from people who've stuck it out and learned what works for them.

It was subtle for me and over a period of time. I started with 100% organic. In fact, my background is web development and working as an SEO specialist for another company. Back in the day when it was relatively easy to get to the top, I saw an opportunity, built a basic site, started promoting it and voila, I had a business, a real one! And this isn't to knock the path anyone else takes, but I was dead set on using my skills to start a business that had nothing to do with my skills. As in, I didn't want to sell marketing or make websites. I wanted to put my skillset to practice. I also wanted to make products that were not simply service based or internet based. A real product, that companies need and buy already, and sell it.

Rankings were up in the top 5, eventually top 1 - 2 spots within 6 months. Before I knew it, I had to quit my job and hire someone. We worked out of my little apartment. Eventually got a small 1 room office, then a bigger one, then another, then another. Now I have 25 employees who make above market wages and get health benefits to boot. It's been 5 years since I decided to go after it. Mind you, I failed a LOT for the previous 10 years, always learning.

Anyways, as Google started to clamp down on the spammy link building, I had to adapt or die. I was never hit by a major update, so my organic rankings slowly began to slide. I'm still "ok" on my organic rankings, but I don't even look at them hardly anymore. I started AdWords 3 years ago, roughly. And the budget just kept going up and up. I had a healthy business to offset the costs at first, but eventually, I'd say 1 1/2 years later, it was clear the AdWords were profitable. It took a LOT of tweaking. AdWords is a full time job, no doubt about it.

Timing for me was ideal as I transitioned to paid from organic. As it would be incredibly difficult and extremely expensive to get a business like mine off the ground with just paid advertising. You asked how much I spent, but that's just too broad since it was subtle. By the time, that in my opinion, it was profitable and running correctly, I wouldn't be surprised if it was mid-six figures.

[Bobjob]

Really? 40% do not know any better? That's wild.

I can't remember what I was in need of, but lastime I clicked a paid for I was desperate to find whatever it was. I googled it every which way I could looking for it organically before giving in to paid for.

Since I perceive a difference - from my perspective if you are paying to be there it means you don't have the "quality business - good name" to organically make it to the top. And because of this I'm leery to consider clicking paid fors.

[BizAdvisor]

My opinion is this: Google ads are great... For companies that have a rather large marketing budget; which allow them to invest a substantial amount of money into Google ads, yet still have viable marketing funds to maintain a diverse marketing strategy.

Google, as great as it is, is not necessarily the "be all, end all" marketing platform. If you only have a limited budget to invest, Google ads probably isn't going to produce the results you expect. For the most part, you are better off investing in a diverse marketing strategy over simply putting all your eggs into one Google basket... But that's just my opinion.

[LeviDouglas]

When answering this question for our clients, we often say BOTH. There are advantages to each and challenges with each.

Organic SEO:
I would always recommend focusing on organic SEO for businesses, especially local businesses. The main downside is that it takes time and effort. But in the long wrong, it will pay off because you are not paying for every click. I advise clients to do a little keyword research and update their website often. Make sure you aren't missing any obvious places for good SEO, like the homepage and title tags. Then post often, if you have a blog, even better. You won't see immediate results, but over time, it will really pay off. Also, DON'T FORGET TO CREATE A GOOGLE MY BUSINESS Page! And don't forget to connect your website to Google Analytics and Google's webmaster tools. Google loves their own products.

Paid Ads:
Google is getting more and more competitive and can become very expensive. The key to paid traffic is to focus on a high converting landing page. If you are just taking people to your homepage, you are really missing a great opportunity. Also, be sure there are easy options to join a mailing list so you can turn that paid click into a customer at some point (that's the idea) and you don't just waste the money if they don't convert right away. Most clicks won't convert immediately, but can be converted over time with a good email campaign.

Also, don't overlook the power of Bing ads. Yes, nobody uses Bing...but the truth is they do. Of course the audience isn't as large as Google's but certain demographics (especially older people) use Bing and Bing ads can come MUCH CHEAPER than Google's. Also, Bing is much less strict about their ads because they are desperate for market share.

I would recommend paid ads if you are needing to see results sooner rather than later, but it is really easy to waste a bunch of money on paid ads if your sales funnel is weak.

Good luck out there!

[BNB]

When answering this question for our clients, we often say BOTH. There are advantages to each and challenges with each.

Organic SEO:
I would always recommend focusing on organic SEO for businesses, especially local businesses. The main downside is that it takes time and effort. But in the long wrong, it will pay off because you are not paying for every click. I advise clients to do a little keyword research and update their website often. Make sure you aren't missing any obvious places for good SEO, like the homepage and title tags. Then post often, if you have a blog, even better. You won't see immediate results, but over time, it will really pay off. Also, DON'T FORGET TO CREATE A GOOGLE MY BUSINESS Page! And don't forget to connect your website to Google Analytics and Google's webmaster tools. Google loves their own products.

Paid Ads:
Google is getting more and more competitive and can become very expensive. The key to paid traffic is to focus on a high converting landing page. If you are just taking people to your homepage, you are really missing a great opportunity. Also, be sure there are easy options to join a mailing list so you can turn that paid click into a customer at some point (that's the idea) and you don't just waste the money if they don't convert right away. Most clicks won't convert immediately, but can be converted over time with a good email campaign.

Also, don't overlook the power of Bing ads. Yes, nobody uses Bing...but the truth is they do. Of course the audience isn't as large as Google's but certain demographics (especially older people) use Bing and Bing ads can come MUCH CHEAPER than Google's. Also, Bing is much less strict about their ads because they are desperate for market share.

I would recommend paid ads if you are needing to see results sooner rather than later, but it is really easy to waste a bunch of money on paid ads if your sales funnel is weak.

Good luck out there!


I have to disagree with you a little bit. You talk about organic SEO as though the results are a sure thing. That is no longer true. "It will pay off" and "it will really pay off". Personally, a business that relies on organic SEO for traffic and sales (generally speaking!) is not a real business. Those rankings come and go, and nowadays, they often don't come at all. And as those rankings come and go, so does the business. It's not a long term strategy at all, let alone thinking it's "going to pay off long term".

Organic SEO is still a strategy I would recommend, but as a late night "extra" and not a major day to day focus. Think of organic SEO as a bonus, a windfall if it happens. But I would never start a business right now with organic being my main strategy to generate business, even over the long term.

[woodflooring]

Hi

Newbie here.

We spent 6 months working on our seo to get organic freebie leads......but we also used pay per click.....

Organic - this is the best option in my opinion, it yields longer free results in the future. We now rank page one for most of the common search terms for our flooring business....actually worldwide for our actual business name, which is also a general search term.....great, but we only work ocally.

PPC - This does yield good results, but its an expensive gamble if you have lots of competion in your area/market and bids on pages can get quiet expensive.

Summary - if i was selling a small ticket item i would put more time into seo, large ticket items then i think ppc is probaly worth a try for a month or two.

Thanks
Chris

in our wood flooring business ppc is a good option because of our average sale price. we spend about 1000 a month and do get good leads, b

[BNB]

Hi

Newbie here.

We spent 6 months working on our seo to get organic freebie leads......but we also used pay per click.....

Organic - this is the best option in my opinion, it yields longer free results in the future. We now rank page one for most of the common search terms for our flooring business....actually worldwide for our actual business name, which is also a general search term.....great, but we only work ocally.

PPC - This does yield good results, but its an expensive gamble if you have lots of competion in your area/market and bids on pages can get quiet expensive.

Summary - if i was selling a small ticket item i would put more time into seo, large ticket items then i think ppc is probaly worth a try for a month or two.

Thanks
Chris

in our wood flooring business ppc is a good option because of our average sale price. we spend about 1000 a month and do get good leads, b


If you are getting good leads on PPC, why only the $50/day budget?

PPC is not a gamble at all, that's exactly the wrong way to look at it. It's real, solid, no excuses competition. If you think it's a gamble because of your competition, to be blunt, that's because your competition is outperforming you. The price of a click is market driven. Different markets and categories have radically different costs, all based on ROI. Companies that have been in the space and have the data know how much they can spend per click and be profitable. If you can convert a higher percentage of clicks than your competition, you will win. If you think it's an expensive gamble, then you are getting your butt kicked by the local competition when it comes to marketing and generating leads, and quite possibly pricing and service.

I sell very, very small ticket items and we do very well on PPC and I essentially take as much as Google can give me. A whole lot went into getting to that point, but that's exactly what competition is about.

[MosheC]

I agree, most people don't go for ads because they know that someone is trying to sell them something. In my experience 70% of your visitors are only looking for information. Organic traffic takes time, but it also allows you to see what keywords bring you focused traffic. I would try organic and they back it up with paid ads for keywords the lead to a sale.

[CoolHandCol]

It also depends what is on page 1 for your key search terms. If you are up against established authorative websites like wiki, amazon, ebay, big brands then organic will take 2 years at best if you are lucky. So paid is your best choice. Don't forget there are other places to market other than Google

[KatySmith]

Organic is better of course, but it takes a lot of time, PPC is rather expensive so everyone choose what is preferable for them...

[MasBro]

PAID. The reason businesses fail at Adwords is because most of them don't know what they're doing. Google is the most profitable company in the world (passed Apple this year). To try to get your head around how much money Google makes on Adwords; in 2015 they made 74.54 Billion dollars - 67.39 Billion of that was from their advertising platforms, Adwords and Adsense. Adwords launched in 2000 and it continues to make Google a lot of dough. Adwords works very well for companies that know how to use it. There are some really good sources out there for learning the system (for a cheap beginner course, take a look at lynda.com), but really, the platform is so robust, businesses really need to hire an expert, not just in PPC, but in conversion optimization. That high CTR isn't going to do much good for you if you're not able to convert those visitors into customers. Good luck!

[ericchristopher]

Statistics suggest you click on paid far more than 1% of the time.

And paid is traffic you can control. Organic, you can not control.

[webfanatic]

I can tell you horror stories of people who solely relied on organic traffic only to get their website wiped off the face of the earth i.e. Google with one of their "updates." I can also tell you horror stories of people who got their Adwords/Bing accounts banned and ultimately lose a lot of their traffic.

The moral of the story is that you must have multiple ways of bringing traffic to your business. Period.

Any kind of paid marketing requires a budget. You will lose money until you figure out your winning campaigns. It's really that simple. If you don't have a budget for paid marketing, then you need to focus on the the free effective marketing techniques until you do.

SEO is a long-term strategy and in the end, there is no guarantee you'll even show up on the first page of Google. Nevertheless, I suggest you still optimize your blog and your blogs posts. At least make the attempt to get into the "ballgame."

Don't forget that you can add social media to the mix. You'll want to learn how to do this effectively as well or else you're just wasting time.

Ultimately, you do want to get to paid traffic because you can always scale it and turn on the traffic at will once you got winner campaigns.

It doesn't have to be paid or organic - it should be both. If you're low on funds stick to no cost traffic methods - as long as you have the time to do it well.

[nduncan]

When you first launch a website, using PPC can be a great way of driving traffic but also finding out what keywords are driving that traffic. You can then focus your SEO efforts on the big money keywords.

Long term I would still aim to have a mix of both however I would continually strive towards getting more organic.

[jelita]

Thanks for the info. Even I was having these doubts.

[ChadR]

I'm an advocate of building both organic and paid traffic. Paid traffic is like a light switch...turn on the spend and the traffic starts. Turn off the spend and the traffic stops. It can be a good way to create instant traffic. Organic takes longer to build up, but once you're established will give consistent results for a lower price. It will help decrease your lead acquisition costs.

Creating organic traffic relies heavily on quality content marketing. Especially with the updated Google search changes, where they read entire site content and can even determine synonyms. Consistently publishing quality, interesting and relevant content is the best way to establish yourself organically. Publish in many different channels as well beyond your own website or social pages. Even guest write for different industry publications and include links back to your blog pages.

Paid traffic can be tricky and expensive. Use the keyword research tool and become proficient in it before starting any new campaigns. Look for opportunities with keywords that maybe popular but under priced. Make sure you know how to write ads. There are many great articles out there about writing AdWord ads that convert well.

We use Facebook and Instagram more than Google AdWords since we've been able to get lower cost per clicks. Facebook provides some excellent audience segmenting and targeting, and boosting popular posts can be a great way to increase your audience for a few dollars. Instgram business pages are relatively new, and people are still trying to figure them out. We've had luck there also and see cost per click even lower than FB. Look at who your audience is, determine what channels they live in, and select the best one. Just know there are other options besides AdWords.

Finally, make sure you have your unique landing or opt-in pages set up and linked to the ads. A common mistake is dropping ad clicks onto your home page and hope they'll figure out what to do next. Make dedicated landing pages for each ad set with similar headlines, content, and a clear call to action.

[LocalSearchSolutions]

40% of the people don't understand the difference, so paid is a great choice if you want to get seen and heard fast.
If you have money and someone who can really optimize your campaign, paid will do wonders instead you having to compete with big names to win the position.

In any other case (not having a big budget) organic will do great, but it takes a lot of time.

People do understand. Especially savvy internet users. "Ad blindness" is real. More and more people skip ads. There's a reason Google just unveiled new ad copy type and also has spent so much time with PLA's. Top of page ads are getting clicked less and less. Less than 60% of page interactions happen with text ads.