The majority of online experiences stem from a search engine. Globally, several billions of daily searches occur on the most popular search engine, Google. Imagine how many searches happen if you combine the top search engines people love to use. Online searches are valuable to any type of business, but disagreements start when they begin comparing paid search versus organic search.

What are these organic search and paid search? These are ways of acquiring traffic for either search engine marketing (SEM) for paid search and search engine optimization (SEO) for organic search.

Which of the two is better, and which one is more effective for business? It is hard to decide because a variety of factors, such as the marketing goals of a company, the budget, and audience behavior, can affect your decision to choose one over the other.

What is an organic search result?

Every reputable search engine marketing agency defines organic search as natural search, meaning it is unpaid. Organic search results are based on the relevance of the search query of the user, domain authority, and links, among other organic factors that affect the search engine ranking.

Whenever you type a query onto your favorite search engine, the list of links or sites that appear below the ads are called organic results. They appear based solely on the content and quality of the page. When a person clicks on one of the organic results, the website receives organic traffic. Organic search results are based on the effectiveness of search engine optimization (SEO).

An SEM agency can offer search engine optimization and search engine marketing services, such as content marketing and PPC advertising. Thus, a client can work with one agency and get all the online marketing services they need.

For many clients, organic traffic is the most valuable source of website traffic. But most of them are based on the results that Google provides. It is definitely undeniable, since Google is the most popular among the search engines, and it is available in most parts of the world. However, there are countries where Google is restricted or banned, such as Syria, Sudan, North Korea, Myanmar, Iran, Cuba, Crimea, and China.

You cannot help but be impressed with Google’s performance. Consider these:

• Google can channelize the highest amount of website traffic. Further, it is the most trusted source of online shoppers looking for products to buy.
• Google is very strict about its website rankings. If a website is included in the top five page results based on keywords, this means that the quality of your web content is very high.
• Moving your website up in the Google search engine ranking is not easy. It takes time to gain organic traffic. But when you do, you will gain the benefits that you worked hard for a long time.
• About 92% of all search traffic in Google goes to websites that belong to the top ten on the first page of Google’s search results.
• More than one-third of clicks from organic search results go to the first website in the list.

In the past, it was easier to rank high on Google. But over the years, website owners employ SEO practitioners to help their websites rank in Google. When they learned that they could stuff their site with keywords to help them rank, Google developed algorithms to prevent illegal keyword stuffing.

The restrictions favored Google, and they improved the reputation of the search engine. Therefore, instead of using other search engines, website owners put their trust in Google, and they work hard to achieve a high page ranking on the popular search engine.

Benefits of organic search

While it may take time to reach a website’s goals, organic search presents several benefits, including:

• Providing higher ROI
• Targeted web traffic
• Long-term results (when properly implemented)
• Cost-effective (it’s free)
• 24/7 exposure to web users
• Improvement in brand awareness
• Increased inquiries, prospect lists, and sales
• Compatibility with other browsers
• Better website accessibility

What is paid search?

In contrast to organic search where the website owner does not pay search engines to earn organic search results, paid search means the client employs search engine marketing, which can involve pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. Based on search engine marketing agency practices, businesses employ them to create paid ads that appear on search engine results based on the keywords used by the user.

These paid ads that you can see on the page results are unobtrusive, which means that most consumers are not aware that they are advertisements. When a user clicks on an ad, the user is led to the relevant website, where the person can buy the product he/she was searching for.

The online marketing method is becoming popular, and undoubtedly, paid search is very effective. Even if you do not know how many companies spend on it, you can measure its effectiveness based on the earnings of Google Ads. Accordingly, Google gets about 70% of its revenue from paid search accounts.

Paid search marketing accords many benefits to a business, such as the following:

• Increased visibility
• Higher web traffic
• More prospects that can become paid customers
• Detailed real-time analytics and data

Which method would a search engine marketing agency recommend?

If there were several options available to a client, a search engine marketing agency would recommend using both methods to achieve the right balance. Both methods have their strengths and weaknesses and have a list of benefits that a client needs.

Using organic search and paid search, the client will reap more rewards. When the client uses paid search, its ads will appear above organic search results. If the company has an optimized website, then it is probable that it is included in the first-page search engine ranking, meaning its visibility is doubled.

You can control your spending. If you want short-term results, you can allocate a budget for paid search. If you want to achieve long-term results, go for organic search through SEO.

There are no fixed rules to drive traffic to your site. Both methods will deliver results, although they may be different. Deciding which method to choose will depend on what you want to achieve, whether you are after increased traffic and immediate conversions, or you want to build long-term trust and relationships with your web visitors.