When it comes to digital marketing, choosing the right channel can be tricky. You want quick results, valuable conversions, boosted sales, and excellent brand awareness. While there isn’t a magic potion that can achieve all of the above, several tools can help.
Both SEO and Google Ads are an integral part of your search engine marketing effort. While for a marketing specialist, it’s hard to imagine one without the other, some business owners try to make a choice.
Some situations warrant using one tool while others require both. Let’s look a little closer at what SEO and Google Ads are and when you may need one or the other.
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Slowly but Surely: What is SEO?
“The best place to hide a dead body is on the second page of Google search results”, – anonymous SEO specialist.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a set of strategies aimed at improving the visibility of your brand online thus pushing your website to the top pages of search engine results. SEO involves a variety of tactics, including:
· Tweaking the website – restructuring the website to ensure it loads fast, has all the necessary meta elements and is easy to browse
· Setting up backlinks – ensuring other websites link to yours to improve its credibility in the search engine’s “eyes”.
· Improving content – creating high-quality content to bring more people to your website, thus increasing chances for conversion.
· Keywords search – finding keywords, which are likely to bring the target audience to your website and placing them strategically inside the content and website’s metadata.
SEO works by raising awareness about your brand. When a user types in a request in any search engine, your website should appear as one of the results. Ideally, it should be on the top page of the results. Even better, it can appear in Google’s featured snippet.
When you invest time and money in SEO, don’t expect immediate results. According to SEO experts from Miromind, search engine optimization takes time and requires patience.
It needs to be carefully honed, measured, analyzed, and tweaked. However, when the strategy finally starts working full speed, you can enjoy a substantial flow of new clients and an increase in revenue.
A Quick Fix: What are Google Ads?
Google Ads is the most popular tool for pay-per-click advertising. When a user searches for a specific keyword, your ad appears in the search results. You only pay for displaying the ad when the user clicks on it.
You share the keywords and set a daily budget (how much you are willing to spend on ads). The rest is done by the platform.
Google is not the only engine that provides such pay-per-click ad options. Bing has a similar service called The Bing Network.
It’s important to understand that your ad isn’t guaranteed to appear on top. If other companies want to display ads with the same keyword, the top spot goes to those, who are willing to pay a higher price.
Meanwhile, the order in which ads appear depends on your Ad Rank. Your rank depends on the quality of your ads and the landing page (hello, SEO).
Overall, Google Ads are an excellent way to bring traffic to your website. However, the quality of that traffic is not always high.
Google Ads vs SEO
· Google Ads work only on Google while SEO is aimed at all search engines.
· You have to pay for Google Ads while you can achieve some SEO results for free.
· SEO takes a much longer time to start bringing results than Google Ads do.
· Google Ads can bring large volumes of traffic to your website. However, the conversion rate may be lower than for traffic achieved by SEO.
· It’s much easier to analyze a Google Ads campaign than it is to understand if SEO is working the way you need it. Accordingly, with Google Ads, you can calculate the ROI of your digital marketing efforts better.
· Google Ads allows you to target several keywords simultaneously while SEO requires focusing on fewer keywords for best results.
· When you stop paying for Google Ads, they stop working. Your SEO campaign will continue bringing results even if you stop maintaining it. However, without upgrading, it will slow down eventually.
Which One Is Right for Your Business?
If you want a solid marketing strategy, SEO and Google Ads must go hand in hand. However, speed can often play a big role in making a decision. Do you want quick results? Or do you have time to gradually grow your company’s presence and achieve high-quality conversions over time?
If you are just starting out, Google Ads may seem like an excellent idea since the platform brings immediate results. However, startups may face high competition for keywords and thus higher costs for PPC advertising. Eventually, your conversions may come at too high of a price.
With SEO, it may take several months for the results to start showing. It may seem like a long time right now. However, this time is a solid investment in the future of your company. Once your website is adjusted to the latest SEO requirements and search engine standards, you can start reaping the benefits. Over time, all you’ll have to do is maintain the website and update your SEO efforts according to the latest developments.
If you need a quick solution now and have the funds to pay for PPC ads, start with Google Ads. If you have time for a long-lasting marketing strategy, choose SEO.
Google Ads brings much-needed traffic to improve webpage rankings while SEO improves the website to achieve a higher Ad Rank. Whatever situation your company is in right now, eventually, it will need both tactics. SEO is behind Google Ads just as Google Ads is behind SEO. Both are vital to strengthening your marketing efforts.
About Carson Derrow
