Being first on Google when searching your services or the products you offer, is no different from having your store right on the main street of the city, as Kärntner Straße in Vienna or Baker Street in London. We all understand the premium and added value that the high rent in those locations justifies, in one word - “visibility”.
Since the value of appearing in searches impacts business performances, companies invest more time and resources into developing its SEM.
SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing and entitles the tasks which improve visibility through SEO & PPC.
SEO - search engine optimization.
SEA - Search Engine Advertising also known as PPC - Pay-per-click.
SEO and SEA are primarily 2 ways to achieve visibility on search engines on the first page.
Organic Search (SEO) Vs. Search Ads (SEA)
The easy way, SEA!
By creating a search ad, targeting your niche, setting keywords, budget, choosing the right content and linking to a C2A (click to action), landing pages, call, or form, in a matter of a few moments, one could get to the top of the search results page in the “ads area”. This all sounds simple, right? Since it’s so easy to make search ads nowadays, you will not be the only one doing it and the competition is always there with you. PPC leads to clicks becoming quite expensive. Besides, some of your users are biased when it comes to ads, they will simply jump to the organic section of the search results which they trust more.
The daily tasks of SEA or PPC include improving bidding strategy, keywords, monitoring competition, ensuring healthy ROAS (return on ad spend), optimizing ad sets and few other things.
The long term approach, SEO
This process is complex and should be broken down into different phases: on-page SEO and off-page SEO. In one sentence, we look at SEO as our website’s public speaker. What makes a public speaker successful? Appearance, content, performance and acknowledgment. Search engines nowadays analyze websites as if they would have been a public speaker. Translating indicators that will significantly improve your SEO are the following:
- The website design is unique and mobile-friendly to use (appearance - onsite)
- It has unique and relevant information including the search terms people look for (content - onsite)
- The website is light, structured properly, bug-free and works fast without downtime (performances - onsite)
- There is a recognition via social media and other websites (acknowledgments - offsite backlinks & link building)
Good SEO impacts the value of digital assets, the same as owning a pizza restaurant in one location differs from another. In real estate, they always say three things are the most important: location, location & location. In digital assets, SEO plays a big role in the “location” factor.
Comparison between SEA and SEO
SEA / PPC is like rent, you need something immediately but pay as long as you want to have it. Where good SEO makes the domain an “owner” of its position on Google.
However, companies that start should try both and leverage SEA as a research tool to analyze the Click-through-rate (CTR) towards different subjects and invest more for current opportunities as an area of interest. Bounce rates and time spent on the website will tell you more about the relevance of the content for optimization purposes.
Each industry varies from another and calls for an optimized solution. Let us understand your business and position better and feel free to contact us for a free assessment.