If you’ve been researching online marketing, you’ve undoubtedly found yourself wondering which yields better results: SEO or AdWords?
SEO, which stands for search engine optimisation, is an organic approach to improving your website’s ranking on search results pages by optimising keywords and content on your website. AdWords, on the other hand, is a form of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.
Both of these methods are used to drive traffic to your website, but they differ in a few key ways.
Cost
SEO is generally considered to be more cost-effective, if not free, since it involves optimising keywords and content to organically raise your website’s ranking and visibility in search engine results. The only cost incurred is the hiring of SEO experts to optimise your content, which is relatively inexpensive compared to paying for advertising.
AdWords, on the other hand, places your website at the top of the search results and increases visibility, but it comes at a significantly higher cost than SEO since you pay for every click.
Timing
SEO is less expensive, but it is also more time-consuming and takes longer to see results. It is a long-term strategy that can take many months, whereas AdWords can drive traffic to your website straight away.
Targeting
AdWords allows for a significantly higher degree of precision when it comes to targeting specific demographics, geographic regions and keywords. There is a large amount of customisation and specificity that the service allows you to implement, thereby improving the chances of reaching your intended audience.
SEO is also great at targeting your intended audience, but it is limited in that it can only optimise websites for specific keywords and demographics, and it cannot target specific geographic regions. However, this can be worked around by inserting geographic regional names as keywords.
Click-Throughs
AdWords typically has a higher click-through rate than organic search results because the ads are displayed right at the top of the search engine results pages. The less prominent position of organic search results means that AdWords is the first thing customers will see when searching for that particular product or service.
Conversely, SEO tends to lead to higher conversion rates. These organic search results lead to higher conversion rates than AdWords because there is an element of trust that comes with the organic discovery of a product or service. Customers inherently feel slightly less trusting towards advertised sites, and so third-party recommendations, as is the case with SEO, tend to yield better conversion rates.
Ultimately, both AdWords and SEO have value, and the ideal online marketing strategy would make use of both simultaneously, as they have features that can complement one another.
If you are not sure about SEO vs AdWords and how to use each or both to your advantage, contact us at Sandbox today. Our online marketing experts can help you maximise your reach!