Should You Invest in Google Ads or SEO to Drive More Traffic to Your Website?
SEO, Google Ads, And Your Best Results
So, your competitor is getting more traffic and sales than you.
You may be wondering — What am I doing wrong? Is it my brand? Is my service not good enough? More than likely you may not be utilizing the most powerful traction builders out there: SEO and Google Ads.
The idea of running these marketing platforms can be both terrifying and intimidating. However, if done right, these tools could transform your business and be the solutions to all of your problems. To get you started in the right direction, let’s talk about what these platforms are, how they can increase traffic to your website, and how they can help you grow your business.
What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, works to increase the quantity and quality of website traffic through unpaid (or organic) traffic. This means search listings are free, and no one can pay for a better ranking. There are two parts to SEO: the people and the search engine.
The People
The foundation of good SEO comes from knowing your audience. It’s about understanding what people are searching for, how they are searching, and the answers they are looking for. If you know all of this, you can connect better with the people that actually need your service.
The Search Engine
The other part of SEO is understanding how the search engine ranks certain content, or how and when the search engine’s algorithm picks your website to show up during a search. Search engines do this by scanning through or “crawling and indexing” all the available content on the web and ranking each material based on how well it answers what the user searched for. The better you know your customer, the better you can build your content for search.
What is Google Ads?
Google Ads is another way to better connect with your audience on the web. Unlike SEO, Google Ads is a PPC (pay-per-click) advertising platform where advertisers can bid to have their ads show up next to relevant searches and audiences. There are multiple ways advertisers can use Google Ads to reach people: Google Search Ads, the Google Search Network, the Google Display Network, Google Shopping Ads, and YouTube Ads. However, in this article we will focus on search and display ads.
Google Search Ads
Google Search Ads allows your ads to pop up when users are searching for similar keywords to those included in your ad. When you search for the “best marketing agency in Austin, Texas,” marketing businesses who have paid to have their ad show up will appear in the search. These are known as ‘text ads.’
Google Display Network
Google Display Network is different from Google Search in that the ads you pay for will be placed on websites you think your consumers will be on. This feature isn’t displayed on the search page like above, but rather targets users on websites and appears as “display ads” or “banner ads.”
Breaking It Down: SEO VS Google Ads
What Will Help Grow Your Business Faster, Google Ads or SEO?
SEO and Google Ads each offer something unique to your business. Therefore the advertising platform that’s best for you will depend on your budget, consumer type, result timeline, and overall growth goal.
Both of the traffic platforms discussed in this article are charged with countless tactics, tools, and strategies to bring more awareness to your website, and ultimately your brand. So what’s going to give you the best results?
SEO: If you’re willing to invest lots of time and wait for longer term results, SEO is a great option to get more eyes on your website and get more customers.
Google Ads: If you’re interested in getting more traffic now, don’t have time to wait, and are willing to pay for each click, Google Ads can help get your website to the top of the search results right away.
However, using these two together will give you the most powerful results of bringing traffic to your business in the short term, and for long-term success.
Blackhawk’s Website Traffic Experts
The backend of growing your company can be challenging and difficult to understand. At Blackhawk, our team of Google certified advertising experts will guide your business through it all. We know the best strategies to grow traffic for all types of industries. Let’s get you a win — give us a call!
