out of the blue

First, let me state the obvious. A website, no matter how beautiful and elaborately designed, doesn’t do anyone one bit of good if no one visits. Next point: With the millions of websites out there (it’s not 1996 anymore people) it’s not easy to make people visit YOUR site. It is tough! So before (or after for you unfortunate souls who didn’t consider this matter before you launched your “awesome” site) you launch your number one site selling the fruit of your loins, you should consider how you’re going to be found in Google. Yes, that’s right, I said Google. Google is the number one site for people who don’t know where they’re headed. But YOU need to know where your site is on Google in order to hope to make back at least a few of those dollars you sank into your website (so it’s not all in vain).

Ok, so let me start by saying that I am not the expert on how to be found in search engines. DPro Marketing (my employer) contains many folk with SEO (you’ll learn later) knowledge, but I am a novice. This makes me the perfect author of this article. This, folks, is SEO vs. PPC for dummies. Written by a novice. Makes sense, right?

Key Words to Know:

Organic/natural SEO: This is the term used to describe the rise of your website in search engines. SEO stands for search engine optimization. Still with me? Hang in there! Basically, Organic SEO as I understand it is your website showing up sooner on search results naturally. That is, versus paying for your website link to show up on the side. Organic/natural SEO is a good thing.

PPC: PPC stands for PPC. This is when you pay for your website to show up on people’s screens when he or she types in certain keywords (of your choosing). So you will rise in the search engines, but not naturally (now you’re getting it…)

SO WHAT?:

So why do you care about this? Well, you obviously want to be in the top of search results if you actually want people to visit your website. So the question is, how do you want to go about being found? PPC can get pricey and tricky, but it does yield guaranteed results (guaranteed in the fact that people will see your link, not that they will buy from you). Organic SEO is harder to achieve, but with inbound links and updating your site frequently to contain more keywords, you can do so. It seems that to achieve Organic SEO, it would be optimal to consult someone who actually knows what they’re doing, but go ahead and knock yourself out if you think you’re that awesome.

Either way, it is important to know the difference between these two search terms, both as a consumer and as a company. Whichever route you decide to take ( I feel as though I would recommend a combination of both), make sure your website is up to par so that when people actually get to the website (however they may get there) they are impressed and want to learn more.

That’s all my wisdom for the day. Surf on people, surf on.

Source: “Organic SEO vs. PPC?” by Kara Ratcliff