SEO or search engine optimization is the process of ensuring that your site appears at the top of search results. The process involves following the laid down search engine best practices. The practices include: writing high quality content, building high quality links and ensuring a good user experience. Many new people confuse SEO with paid advertising or PPC. The two are very different. In PPC you pay Google and other search engines to show you Ad that drives traffic to your site. SEO is preferred by many people as it has many benefits that include:
Cost effectiveness
As mentioned, in pad advertising you have to pay the search engine for it to show your Ad. While the Ads are highly targeted thus you have high chances of driving targeted traffic to your site, you have to pay. The payments are usually small but without proper management it can get expensive. With organic SEO you don’t have to pay any money (unless you are hiring someone to do the work for you). All you need to do is follow the rules given by Google and you will be on your way to the top of search results without spending any amount of money.
Long-term results
While PPC gives you instant results, the results aren’t long lasting-they end as soon as you bring down the Ad. This isn’t the case with SEO. You will stay for a long time before you start seeing results of your hard work but once the results start showing, they are long lasting. To maintain the top rank and continue driving traffic you should continue following Google guidelines.
SEO helps you to build a brand and trust
Studies show that internet users have more trust on sites that have high organic rankings. In fact the users tend to give priority on search results over sponsored links. This means that when you have a higher organic rank you appear more authoritative and people tend to trust you more. This helps you to easily brand yourself. You also tend to make more money.
More search engines find you
It’s estimated that 70% of internet users use Google to search the web. This leaves you with 30% of users that you won’t be able to reach if you use paid advertising. Studies show that when you rank high in the search results on Google you have high chances of ranking high in Bing and Yahoo. This means that even if you optimize your site for Google, you still have high chances of being favored by the other search engines.
Conclusion
These are the benefits that SEO has over paid search. If you are looking for a quick fix you should go for paid advertising but if you are looking for a long lasting solution and build a brand, go with SEO. The beauty of SEO is that you don’t have to hire anyone to do it for you. Unless you are too busy or you are finding it to be complex.
