The other day, a customer asked me “Why do I need to worry about SEO, when I can just pay for ads to bring traffic to my website?”
Which is a good question.
Pay per click (PPC) advertising on Facebook, or Google is fast, effective and can really improve your business’s visibility online. But once you stop paying, that visibility (and the flow of customers or leads that came with it) disappears.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), on the other hand, is all about increasing the quantity and the quality of organic search traffic that comes to your website.
Organic search traffic is real human customers or leads who have found your website naturally through a search engine. Its free, and it has staying power. But it is something you need to nurture over time.
Organic traffic is, arguably, the most important form of traffic you can get to your website.
#1 It brings in regular and more engaged visitors
If your website ranks in the Search Engines for a keyword or phrase, you’ll enjoy regular targeted traffic to your site for that keyword.
And real visitors, with a genuine interest in your content have the highest potential to convert into paying customers.
If you have content on your website that is relevant and engaging and is drawing in visitors – its more likely to be shared. And that can help expand your audience.
#2 Its cost effective
Increasing the organic traffic to your website is a high impact & low cost marketing strategy.
While organic search traffic is free – generating it isn’t always. It takes time and/or money to create content for your website that your visitors want to see – and that search engines want to show them.
However its often cheaper than PPC advertising and in the long term has a much higher ROI.
In addition, the assets that you create on your website as part of an SEO content strategy can be used in your other marketing as well. They can be repurposed into brochures, social media posts, customer newsletters and more.
#3 Its sustainable
The moment you stop paying for ads, you lose momentum.
Organic traffic doesn’t work like that. It takes time to start getting results, but once you do, they’re long lasting.
One of the great things about creating content on your website that performs well in search, is that the more people who visitor site, the higher your website ranks in search engines and the more visitors search engines are likely to send you.
Of course, no strategy has to be an either/or. PPC advertising and SEO can work well together to help build your traffic both quickly and sustainably, over time.
