Organic Placement vs. Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

When one does a search on Google or Yahoo or other search engines, the results of such a search are broken down and displayed on different sections of the page. The sponsored links are propagated by those that paid to be placed there via pay-per-click (PPC) search engine marketing. They are often located on the right hand side and top of each results page and are labeled “sponsored links” or “sponsored results”.

The main body of the search results page is the result of organic search engine marketing. Search engines are not paid for organic search traffic, placement is a free service. Placing on page one can lead to tremendous business. Note: If there is a map with an index of companies, those are the results from registering with that search engine’s local business directory.

So which is more important, organic or PPC marketing? The answer in short is both. It is dependant upon how much patience you have and what your targeted keywords and phrases are.

Take for instance a phrase such as ‘video editor’. If you search on the word video editor, you’ll find thousands of search results. If you own a video editing company and are trying to place on page one when someone types in the word video editor then you’ll probably need to invest in a pay-per-click campaign.

That is the purpose of pay-per-click search engine marketing. You are paying to place on page one of the sponsored results lists for common keywords in targeted geographic regions for a specific number of click-throughs to your website.

If you want to be found for the words video editor or website designer, you’re probably going to have to pay to show up on page one. The benefits of PPC marketing are that it is keyword specific and the propagation is immediate.

But what if you add the words ‘Scottsdale AZ’ to the search for video editor? If your campaign targets the keywords ‘video editor Scottsdale AZ’, your competition for showing up in the free results pages decreases substantially and you may show up on the first page or two for targeted keywords with a geographic anchor.

Try it out for yourself. If you initiate a Google search and type in the keyword phrase “video editor Scottsdale AZ” you should see a link to Creative Developments website on page one of the search results. What’s more if you add the word “in” as in “video editor in Scottsdale AZ” a link to our local business directory listing should display on page one.

If you have optimized your website’s pages and targeted these keywords appropriately, you may very well show up on page one of an organic search results list on Google, Yahoo and other search engines.

When you think about it, isn’t this how people normally search for something? Are you geographically specific when you are looking for a therapist or a dentist or a website designer or a video editor?

It might cost more in the beginning and take months of patience but if you can afford the initial investment and can commit the time in man hours that it takes to invest in an organic search engine marketing campaign, you may save money over the long run by opting to implement an organic search engine marketing campaign. Why spend thousands of dollars a month on a pay-per-click campaign when you can appear on page one for free for the same keywords and phrases?