Almost every business has to advertise its services in one way or another. There are many choices: you can create a search engine-optimized website, set up social media profiles, ask your customers to refer you to their network, collaborate with other businesses, and pay for online ads. When considering paid search vs organic search, it’s important to take into account where you are in your journey and what you’re hoping to achieve.
Getting organic traffic is cheaper and delivers better long-term results, but it involves a lot of work. In contrast, paid advertisements are a quick and easy way of getting more customers, but they can be expensive, and there is no guarantee that they will work. Read on to find out which strategy, organic vs paid search, could work well for your business.
Paid Versus Organic Traffic: Which Is Better?
Organic traffic comes from various sources, including search engines, social media links, and links on other websites. It can be hard to build this up because you have to spend a significant amount of time optimizing your website, updating it every week, and posting to your social media profiles. However, organic traffic is free, and most people who click on your content are genuinely interested, so they are likely to be high-quality leads.
In contrast, paid advertisements can cost a lot of money, so they might not be ideal for businesses just starting out or those trying to keep their advertising budget to a minimum. However, the process is less hands-on. Once the advertisements are created, the platforms will display them to the correct people. Businesses that have a large budget but not a lot of time to spend on marketing could do well with paid ads.
How to Get Organic Traffic
If you want to reduce your advertising costs, getting as much organic traffic as possible is key. With some simple measures, such as optimizing your search engine ranking and designing a beautiful website, you can drastically increase the number of people who visit your website. Even better, each person will spend more time on the site if it is attractive, which makes it more likely that they will buy from you.
Improving your organic website traffic and the number of leads involves consistent work. You’ll have to come up with a great website design, update your website and your social media pages regularly, collaborate with others in your industry or area, and launch campaigns aimed at increasing the volume of customer referrals.
Creating a Search Engine Optimized Website
First, create a modern website that is easy to navigate for your potential customers. Think about what kind of information they might want about your product and service and how you can efficiently place all the details on your website. You might want to incorporate current design trends, such as vivid colors and lots of typography. Also consider what devices your leads will access your website on, and optimize the layout of the site for various screens.
Once you have a beautiful website, make sure that it shows up on search engines. Select some keywords and place them in strategic locations on the website, improve the loading speed of your content, and use a few high-quality links to give your content authority. It’s also important to remember that newer posts rank higher, which is why most successful advertisers update their websites once a month or more.
Writing Engaging Content
On your website and on your social media pages, you’ll have to post engaging or entertaining content that draws your readers in and makes them want to find out more about you. But how can you do this without spending hours each week coming up with new material? Many businesses use advertising agencies and content writers, who can analyze the business’s needs and regularly create fresh, original posts.
What’s more, you can reuse content that worked particularly well. With the help of small business software, you can save all your images, documents, and texts in one convenient place. If you find that one post was very successful on social media or attracted a lot of attention on your website, you can reuse it on other platforms or create “Throwback” posts that remind customers of the content they loved best.
Setting Up Social Media Profiles
Search engines can bring a lot of traffic to your website, but this might not be enough on its own. Instead, you’ll need to supplement it with clicks from your social media profiles. Set up one to three accounts on platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, or Pinterest. Make sure to link to your site and create an engaging profile that encourages people to seek out more information.
Just like a good website, social media profiles take a lot of work because they have to be updated every day for maximum effect. Since you’re busy running your business and serving your customers, it might be easiest to delegate this advertising task to professionals. The marketing team at Anthem Software has years of experience creating fun social media posts that attract leads and build up a business’s following.
Collaborating with Other Content Creators
Collaboration is one of the easiest ways to increase traffic to your website because it can double or triple your audience. When you appear as a guest on someone’s podcast or video, write a guest article for a large blog or put together a course for an influencer’s followers, you gain access to the host’s audience. This works best if there is a link between your product or service and their niche.
For example, a business producing baked goods could benefit from a collaboration with a cooking show or YouTube channel. In contrast, a company specializing in home repairs might benefit from a collaboration with a property investment expert or an estate agent because these professionals will have lots of contacts who are looking to buy a home and do it up.
Create an Incentive for Referrals
When thinking about paid versus organic traffic, most content creators only consider online sources. But your existing clients can also be a great source of leads. When you have a satisfied customer, they are likely to refer you to their friends and family members. This is one of the best kinds of advertising because you’re almost guaranteed high-quality customers who already trust you, and you don’t have to put any effort in to get new customers.
If you want to multiply this effect, why not offer an incentive for referrals? Give your customers 10% off your next product or service when they refer another person or offer them something unique that is only available to those who have recommended you to their contacts. This can be an easy and cheap way of getting more leads.
When Is Paid Advertisement a Good Idea?
As we just talked about in the organic traffic vs paid traffic debate, organic traffic is great for attracting high-quality customers without spending a lot of money. But with social media platforms and collaborations, there are no guarantees. Sometimes, organic advertising strategies work very well, but at other times, they might not succeed due to bad timing, problems with the algorithm, or other factors that are outside your control.
Paid ads are much more predictable because your content is guaranteed to be displayed to your target customer. You’ll be able to reach more people faster, and you won’t spend so much time trying to attract the right leads. If you’ve already built up a solid social media following and a great website, utilizing paid ads could be the next step in your marketing journey.
What Kinds of Ads Are There?
Various platforms offer paid ads, and it’s worth considering several of them before deciding. If you’d like to appear high up on search engine rankings, you could choose a search ad, which shows up on results pages. This can be a great choice if you’re offering a very specific product or service. You could also try display ads, which appear around the content of websites.
Since there are several spaces available on most websites, the ads are easily customizable. Some businesses prefer to advertise directly on their favorite social media site. This brings relevant traffic to your website or profile, and it can also increase your follower count.
How Well Do Paid Ads Work?
Not all paid ads work well. At first, you might need to trial several options to figure out how to get the best response. An experienced marketing team can help you come up with the right keywords, pictures, and advertising copy that will encourage people to click on your content. When done well and consistently, paid advertising can provide you with a great return on your investment, often over 400%.
Paid vs organic search traffic: which is better? The answer is that both can work well for businesses, and a combined strategy is often the most effective. If you would like to increase your website traffic and leads, you might benefit from speaking to professional advertisers. Contact us at Anthem Software and ask us about our comprehensive marketing services.
