When you’re deciding where to put your marketing dollars, paid search vs. organic search are two of the biggest options to consider. These two marketing channels serve very different purposes, and they tend to work best when they support each other instead of competing for the bulk of your budget.
We help clients grow their businesses with paid and organic search campaigns every day. Below, we’ve provided an overview of what sets paid and organic search apart, how both can benefit your business, and other factors to consider..
What Is Organic Search?
Organic search results are the unsponsored listings that show up on a search engine results page (SERP) after a web user types in a query.
Google uses an ultra-complex algorithm to rank pages on SERPs, and the pages that rank highest tend to earn the most organic traffic (clicks). Search engine optimization (SEO) plays a major part in ranking for specific keywords.
If you’ve recently launched a new website or published new content, building up organic traffic can take time. Search engines crawl, index, and evaluate pages before they rank them, so it often takes longer to see a spike in organic traffic versus paid.
How Can You Start Getting More Organic Traffic?
Organic search traffic has to be earned. Search engine crawlers want to see that your site features relevant content, is designed well, and is up-to-date, along with plenty of other factors, before they start ranking your pages in search results and citing them in AI overviews.
This is where a partnership with a trustworthy SEO agency can be worth the investment. Professional SEO can help your website perform better in organic search via strategic changes to your website, Google Business Profile, and more.
What Is Paid Search?
Paid search traffic is the umbrella term for any visits to your site that come from ads. This form of advertising is called pay-per-click (PPC), because Google and other search engines charge you for every interaction you get through the ads you buy.
When it comes to paid search vs. organic search, paid search traffic tends to ramp up faster because you don’t have to earn it. If you start running a search campaign through Google Ads for one of your services, you might start seeing clicks within the day.
How Is Paid Traffic Different?
On top of being a form of advertising rather than organic content marketing, paid traffic is also unique in several other ways. One of the biggest distinctions is in how targeting works.
Paid search gives you precise control over who sees your ads. You can target specific locations, demographics, and times of day, allowing you to narrow your focus even further within those groups. You can also choose specific keywords that you want to target, which means your sponsored links will only show up in search results when a web user uses a specific query.
Organic traffic isn’t as easy to fine-tune as paid. However, you can still get incredible results from your SEO efforts by strategically writing and designing your website to target certain searches.
Do People Trust Organic Content More Than Paid Ads?
Many searchers notice right away that a link is sponsored, and as soon as they recognize this, they may avoid clicking. These web users are much more likely to critically scroll through search results until they find an organic link. They might also be more likely to scroll past an AI overview in search of more specific information.
However, not everyone avoids paid ads, and they can still be very helpful when you use them well. Ads tend to work best when they are matched with high-intent keywords. This means that your ads should be fine-tuned to show up when someone is actively looking to make a call or purchase.
Why Should You Use Paid and Organic Search Together?
Paid and organic search aren’t really an either-or decision for most businesses. If you have the budget, running search ad campaigns and other forms of PPC advertising can go hand-in-hand with your SEO strategy, which will drive organic traffic to your site.
We generally don’t recommend staking all of your hopes on just one marketing channel. That’s why we tend to build strategies for our clients that include a mix of organic and paid search efforts, along with room for social media advertising and posting.
How Paid Search Informs Organic Search and Vice Versa
Data from your paid campaigns can also help you get a clearer picture of how you should approach SEO for your business. This is because the keywords that convert well in paid search often are solid candidates for inclusion in your SEO content.
The reverse is also true. If a certain topic is driving lots of traffic to your site organically, it’s worth testing as a paid keyword to see how it performs in a sponsored context.
When you analyze your search and ad data using tools like Google Search Console and SEMRush, you’ll be able to see how certain keywords are performing organically, and you can use the Google Ads platform to do the same for paid campaigns. Use this data as the basis for any changes you decide to make to your advertising and SEO strategy.
Let’s Build a Search Strategy That Works for You
Paid and organic search both pull in clicks from search engine results pages, but one is advertising and the other isn’t. A digital marketing agency that works with small businesses can help you decide how much of your marketing budget to spend on both of these channels, plus how much to leave for other potential sources of leads and sales.
If you’re ready to talk through what a balanced search strategy could look like for your business, reach out to our team today.