Thursday, January 3, 2008

Pay-Per-Click Or Organic: Why You Should Care

It's not enough to simply create a great website.  The more important element is getting visitors -- qualified, profitable visitors -- to click on your sites.  There are two ways to achieve this goal:  organic search and PPC (pay per click).

The advantages of pay-per-click are compelling:

  • Nearly instant traffic:  your ads should start showing within 10 minutes after setting up a PPC campaign.
  • Keyword monitoring:  you can quickly monitor which keywords bring visitors who convert.
However, every visitor -- even those who are "just looking" -- will cost you money.  And competition is growing daily, which will only drive the cost per click up over time.

So what about an organic search results?  Well, for one thing, visitors are free, so there's a very high ROI on those clicks.  More searchers click in the organic search results than the PPC ads, according to research, which leads to more targeted traffic.  By investing a little time and money each month, you can gradually build a site to attract loads of free visitors.

Of course, there are disadvantages, too.  Organic search ranking takes time -- a few weeks or even a few months.  And it often requires a skilled SEO professional to help you create the content and format that's most likely to get the greatest number of free clicks.

The bottom line is that no one advertising method is perfect for everyone. But if you understand the difference, you can make the right choice for your goals.