Paid Search vs. SEO - Part 1

When you're considering your options in search marketing it can sometimes be difficult to weigh the choice between paid search and SEO. In reality you would probably be doing both, but even then it helps to be able to understand how they can work together in your search marketing strategy.

Perhaps the biggest difference is that SEO takes time, while you can open and launch a Google or Yahoo paid search campaign and be up and running in minutes. However, with rising bid prices and an increasing number of players across most verticals, combined with the increasing sophistication and complexity of both the Google and Yahoo systems, paid search has its own set of challenges.

The economics of both are of course relative to where you are now vs. your short- and long-term business goals. Paid search is sometimes called "checkbook SEO". As long as you have room on your credit card, you can keep the traffic flowing. SEO is more about generating referrals from the organic search results, and is often referred to as "free" traffic. However, just because your credit card isn't being charged daily for clicks, doesn't mean that organic search traffic is free. In fact for the short term, organic search engine optimization can be a substantial investment, with little or no return for 6-12 months or more.

If you're starting out with a new site, there's some good news and bad news. With sufficient due diligence and planning, you can build a site from the start that's engineered for optimal organic search potential.  The downside is that it can take a new site six months or more to gain enough credibility in the search engines to start ranking for some of your target keywords.

If you're considering optimization of an existing site, it's important to realize that the site may need to be re-engineered to be "search-engine-friendly". That could mean anything from minor tweaks to a complete redesign. It would require buy-in from all stakeholders, and a commitment of resources on the part of marketing, developers, creative and editorial staff, and management. If you've been involved in redesign efforts before, you probably realize that this can be far from trivial.

Another common misconception is that once you've done your SEO, you're in "set-it-and-forget-mode". Depending on the size of your business and the stakes involved, organic search is always going to involve at least some level of ongoing monitoring and maintenance. Many SEO agencies include a monthly maintenance component in their packages. Is that a good value? It all depends on what they mean, and on how proactive you're going to be on your end.

It's important to remember that organic search results are based on the ebb and flow of continuously evolving algorithms. If you've done a good job of building an optimized site, you may be in reasonably good shape for the short-term. But remember that search algorithms are increasingly taking factors like update frequency and inbound links into account. If neither is happening on an ongoing basis, and your competitors are doing those things, you're likely to see your performance decline over time.

At the very least you should have defined some success metrics or key performance indicators (for both SEO and paid search), and you should keep an eye on them. If those metrics start trending in an unfavorable direction you should be able to trace them back to the root cause and consider corrective action.

Whether that's something you can do in-house vs. a 3rd party maintenance agreement depends on your unique situation. If you invest some time in learning the ropes on your end, maybe you only need consulting help when your bottom line is taking a serious hit and you're stumped as to the appropriate course of action.

The good news about organic search traffic is that, while it's never going to be totally "free" - assuming you've applied best practices from the outset (vs. cheap tricks) -  your initial investment should be paying dividends for a long time after your initial investment is behind you.