Organic Search vs. Paid Search: Tips & Tricks (2020)

Paid vs. Organic Search

You guys! What a start to 2020 this has been. I feel like I can confidently say that none of us saw this coming. But, that’s okay...we are adapting and  getting through this together! COVID-19 has certainly thrown a major curveball to a lot of industries and companies, BMG included. We are a small business, so we get that the struggle is real right now. With that being said, it’s important to keep your head up and keep moving forward. 

There are a lot of things you can do from a marketing perspective to strategically keep your business moving forward, even during this time. Organic search vs. paid search is one of these strategies and we are going to focus on that today! We want to talk about this strategy in a pre-COVID-19 world and a post-COVID19 world, because they do look very different, and that’s okay! In this blog, you will get to learn our director of marketing, technology, and data’s insights and advice as to what this looks like in today’s world. Keep on reading to learn the deets! 

What is organic search?

Let’s start with organic search. When you do any type of Google search, you get one of two types of results: organic or paid. An organic search result shows the web page listings that match what you searched for based on the relevancy of the content. A paid search result shows content that someone has paid to rank for based on keywords. 

It’s also important to note that an organic search results typically pulls up organic content. Organic content is any content that you aren’t paying to promote. This includes things like blog posts, webpages, and things of that nature. Pretty much all of the content you are putting out there that you don’t have to pay for. Ads, for example, wouldn’t be an example of organic content.

If you plan on creating organic content, you want to create posts on your website that your readers will find helpful. Post on social media platforms that your users are on and again, link back to your website or back to your blog posts. Make sure your blog content and website content are created and centered around keywords that your customers are searching for. There are websites out there like Moz and Ahrefs that can help you find the best keywords for your content. Super easy.

It’s so important to do your research to ensure you are writing the correct type of content that is going to draw in and attract new customers. Pay attention to what your competitors are posting and research the best times to post. Trust me, doing the work on the back-end will pay off in the long run. 

In a pre-COVID-19 world and a post-COVID-19 world, organic searches and organic content pretty much looks the same. Your budget might be a little tighter than normal, so take advantage of organic search and ramp it up more than you normally might. Get your name and your business out there for new customers to see!

What is paid search?

Paid search is where you pay a certain amount of money to have your website displayed on the search engine results when someone types in those keywords or phrases we just talked about. Ads would be an example of a paid search. Having this position on the search engine makes your content one of the first things a potential client will see first and gives you a good chance they will click on your content, if done right of course.

Paid search in a pre COVID-19 world

Remember the days before COVID-19? Like three months ago? Yeah, me too. The marketing world looked a little different before this pandemic. In a pre-COVID-19 world, you would typically take your budget and spread it across different efforts and different campaigns to help bring in the maximum amount of customers and to see what kinds of campaigns work for your business and what kinds of campaigns don’t work for your business. However, in this post-COVID-19 world, your paid search strategy might have to be slightly tweaked. Keep on reading to learn how! 

Paid search in a post COVID-19 world

Just like I said earlier, COVID-19 has really thrown us for a curve. Understandably, people are reducing their spending because of the pandemic, so where does paid search fit in? Should you do away with it completely? Should you continue business as usual and continue what you were doing before COVID-19? These are all very fair questions that a lot of people are probably wondering. I spoke with Jon, our director of marketing, technology, and data on what his thoughts are on this topic and what advice he has when it comes to paid search during this time. 

Jon started by saying that, “most marketers fight to earn their budget for the year and it’s hard to give it up, but in these times, it’s very important to audit the drivers of the business and focus attention on retaining that business and finding new growth opportunities.” Jon goes on to talk about how a lot of marketers only recommend reducing your paid search during this time rather than cutting it or stopping it all together. Even if you are just reducing your budget, it’s so important to know where your business is being generated and where it isn’t. For paid efforts that aren’t helping drive revenue, it’s hard to justify the cost during this pandemic. 

Jon suggested that for campaigns that might not be working well, to greatly reduce the budget and funnel some of it into the campaigns that are working well. So, it isn’t about cutting the spend all together, it’s about balancing it and decreasing it where it needs to be decreased and increasing it where it needs to be increased. This ensures you're getting the biggest bang for your buck and spending your money in places that are going to bring you the most amount of revenue. 

BMG Marketing 

Organic search vs. paid search is something that a lot of companies implement in their marketing strategies and so should you! Both organic search and paid search provide their own set of benefits and can still be successfully utilized in your marketing strategy, even during this crazy COVID-19 time if done correctly. If you have any questions regarding this topic or are wanting to implement it in your own company and need some help, give BMG a call today, we would love the opportunity to work with you!