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One of the hardest challenges for a marketer is figuring out what steps to take to start building a brand. Overseeing a business’ reach and growth can be intimidating to anyone. Should you focus on specific keywords on your site, or should you pay to have your site appear on top in search engine results? What is the difference between the two? To market your brand the way you want, it’s important to know the difference between organic and paid search.

Organic Search 

Organic search results are unpaid and show up on the top of a consumer’s search engine based on the relevance of your keyword query and the quality of the content. Search engines use many different factors to determine the most relevant content to present to a consumer, such as keyword usage, website authority, quality of content, and user experience. Organic rank is not paid, but it does take more time and hard work to earn a higher ranking. To put this in perspective, let’s consider the pros and cons of using organic search.

Pros

• Cost-effective: For businesses that do not have the budget for paid search, organic search may be their only option.

• ROI: Organic search has a great return on investment(ROI) because it costs little to nothing. In other words, you are gaining more from this investment relative to the cost.

• Increased Credibility: Your website is attracting more relevant users because of the relevant content, not because you paid more than a competitor to have the website shown first. In turn, your credibility will increase.

Cons

• Regular maintenance is required: In organic search, it is a necessity to maintain your relevance by constantly using changing keywords to keep up with what your target audience is searching for. 

• Conversion: Conversion is not as high as paid search. This means consumers are less likely to sign up or buy your product in organic search results.

• Search results: Because there will always be another business using paid search, your website is more likely to show up in the middle of the page instead of the top. 

• Time: It takes a lot of time to build your ranking high enough to catch your target audience’s attention. You have to research what keywords your audience is using, and it takes a very skilled SEO specialist to make your keywords relevant enough to rank higher than a paid advertisement.

Paid Search 

Paid searches are advertisements that businesses pay search engines for their sites to show typically at the top of the page. This is how search engines like Google make a profit. Paid search is used by many businesses to increase their reach because advertisements are almost always shown at the top of search results. Paid search sounds more beneficial, but let’s look at the pros and cons again.

Pros

• Instant results: Because your advertisements are shown at the top of the search results, your clicks and conversions are likely to improve almost instantly. 

• Ranking: You are paying for your ads to be shown at the top of the page, so your ranking will be higher than others. 

• Clicks: You will get a higher click-through rate because your ad will likely be clicked on first in a search.

Cons

• Short term outcomes: Your ads may get more clicks, but they do not benefit you in the long term, like increasing your credibility or satisfying your audience. More likely than not, your ad will be chosen before a more relevant ad, making your audience frustrated rather than satisfied.

• Cost: You pay the search engine per click on your ad in a paid search. Although this is usually inexpensive, it is not as ideal as not paying anything. 

• Ongoing maintenance: Like organic search, it is essential to constantly maintain your content to get the results you want. With paid ads, you are looking to make adjustments to either increase how much money you are spending on a particular keyword or decrease how much you are spending on a keyword that becomes less relevant.

How do you choose which one to focus on?

Both methods have their advantages and disadvantages, but organic search seems to have more of an allure because of the long-term benefits that come with it. Paid search can become expensive to maintain and tend to be more beneficial for short-term results. Either way, it is up to you as a marketer to decide which option would be best for your organization or to decide that it is best to balance your strategy with a bit of both. 

Author: Taylor Munghia

NISM Social Media Strategist Intern

Taylor Munghia is an intern for the National Institute for Social Media, who is working towards achieving the Social Media Strategist certification. She is a recent graduate from the University of Southern Mississippi with a bachelor’s degree in business with an emphasis in marketing. She is also educated in social media content and strategy.