The everlasting decision between Organic Marketing V.S Paid Advertising
It is not a secret that the digital world enabled millions of websites to emerge. As a matter of fact, today, it is not difficult to realize that a sheer array of websites resort to all kind of practices in order to outpace their competitors and get the level of attention they want, need and deserve. Of course, given the amount of sites, such endeavor is no less than a daunting task. And, to make things «worse», with the emergence of the digital world, companies, businesses and marketers in general ended up facing a myriad of different marketing strategies, all of which claim to be better than the others at providing better results in terms of traffic, online reputation and positioning.
We at ReputationDefender are aware of the fact, that even there are hundreds of different ways to achieve marketing goals, some of these strategies are indeed better than others depending on how they are used. We have previously addressed different ways to drive traffic to a website via different search engine optimizations strategies; however, it still remains a matter of debate whether these strategies are mutually exclusive or they can be used simultaneously. Perhaps, the two most common strategies out there are organic search marketing and paid search advertising, and we at ReputationDefender would like to provide some insights on the positive and negative aspects of both strategies; but first and foremost, in order to make things clear, a basic definition of both terms is no less than adequate: the definition of «organic» within this landscape commonly refers to those results that are determined by search engine algorithms, and, as such, the results are solely based on the behavior and the merits of each website. Paid, on the other hand, although goes hand in hand with organic results, is bought rather than earned.
Can marketers expect early results?
In short, taking previous experiences as reference, the wisest thing would be to use both strategies simultaneously. It is, of course, much better to have an ongoing flow of free organic traffic; nonetheless, in order to receive this benefit, a serious investment is needed over time, and commonly it takes much longer than expected just to have a quick glimpse at the desired results.
Paid traffic does cost much more at the beginning; it demands a heavier investment upfront, but it does bring along a remarkable advantage over organic traffic as well. It is much quicker. No question about that. And such premise is what should be considered before laying out any marketing strategy: if a particular business wants (needs) to gain a visible position in the pages of results of search engines, then paid strategies ought to be taken seriously. Besides, it is a great opportunity for marketers to get immediate feedback on whether they are carrying out the strategy or correctly or whether, after spending months on different campaigns, the strategy was entirely doomed since the beginning.
So, given the nature of both strategies, it is also important to consider the expectations: some businesses just cannot afford such initial investment in present time in hopes of getting results in the near future, and that is why a mixture between organic and paid seems to be the perfect choice for the vast majority of businesses, especially ventures and startups, who, otherwise, would not be able to survive the wait.
When organic search marketing is carried out correctly it does work wonders: it builds permanent traffic sources for websites — by writing a genuine and compelling guest post on a relatively high traffic website, the publisher will continue getting referral traffic for as long as the other website is still functional. And even if the publisher were to forget about that post and the site they posted it on, he or she would continue receiving traffic on a timely basis: that is, by definition, the full scope and power of what is known as organic search marketing.
Be that as it may, before choosing one or both strategies, there are also other things to consider prior to making up the mind: many startups, especially those e-commerce sites that run on Shopify, ought first to balance short-term variability with long-term growth, and, thusly, choose between paid search marketing and organic search marketing. Organic marketing is arguably an effective, long-term strategy. It does pay off after months and months of correct and proper management. Its premises, then, rely on the production and publication of genuine, characteristic, great and valuable content in hopes of having enough people read it and, thusly, building a solid traffic funnel; however, in order to achieve that, a lot of content is definitely required (which, of course, embodies a daunting, time-consuming task).
And since online search marketing requires time and dedication, those businesses seeking to convey the message almost immediately ought to consider paid marketing options, for it enable businesses and companies in general to deliver information, obtain feedback and assess quick results.
