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Deciding how to market your content can be a difficult decision. You can choose to work on search engine optimization, or you can pay to advertise. One takes more work and the other costs money. Take a look at the pros and cons of organic and paid advertising, and get a better idea of which method will work best for you.
Organic Advertising: Pros
The most significant advantage of SEO is that it is free. Initially, it still takes time, but it will bring you traffic over an extended period of time. Another benefit is that Google and other search engines treat websites with good SEO as credible resources.
When a user searches for something and your site comes up matching their search keyword, they are more likely to click the link, since that is what they were looking for. This way you don’t have to target a specific audience. Instead, you can target the people who are searching for your keyword.
Organic Advertising: Cons
Time is the con. You must research keywords that rank and find ways to insert those keywords into your content. The other time downside is that it can take time for a keyword you used to rank in search engine results. Even if you do the research, you may not rank very high if other sites have more domain authority than yours. There is no guarantee of organic traffic.
Paid Advertising: Pros
If you have to get your content out quickly, then paying for advertising is the fastest way to reach your audience. Paid advertising is usually easy to set up, and you can set your budget as well as the length of the campaign. Another advantage is that you can measure the results and stop the ad if it isn’t working.
Many companies pay influencers as paid advertising. If you are paying an influencer, you may be more likely to get sales, as they have a targeted audience. Many influencers have fans that will buy anything they suggest.
Paid Advertising: Cons
Obviously, paid is not free. Also, you must understand where your audience is located before you decide to advertise. In other words, you need to have a good understanding of your customer. Another con is that paid advertising does not rank as well on search engines.
Combination Advertising
You’re not limited to using just one method. You can write your content for SEO and do some paid advertising at the same time. You will get the quick and the long-term benefits as well. If your budget is tight, doing some paid advertising will give you an idea of what is bringing people to your site, and you can then tweak the content to incorporate more useful SEO keywords.
Of course, you have to decide what is going to work best for you. Running an ad may not be possible, so SEO is best. You may need immediate results for a client, so paid is the way to go. Basically, it comes down to time and money.