Paid traffic has now become more openly promoted throughout the internet, and on social media. However, is it better than organic traffic for conversions?
Paid traffic is more common today than ever before. Social networks charge money to disseminate an ad or promote a marketing campaign. There are also click farms out there that some businesses use to increase the traffic on their website, but how much of that is worth it?
Is it feasible to invest money in bringing users over that don’t organically gravitate to one’s platform? Let’s take a look at which traffic is more valuable: organic or paid.
Statistics in Favor of Paid Traffic
- According to Power Traffic, the top three paid advertising spots cumulatively receive 46% of the clicks on a page. That’s nearly half the traffic on that page. This is in great support of the pay per click (PPC) method.
- An average of $3 is generated for every $1.60 spent on paid traffic. This is a great ROI that has shown to repeat itself.
- PPC ads have also been shown to improve awareness of a product or service by 80%. This is in spite of Adblockers that tend to block even the highest-paid ads.
- However, the best part about PPC ads or paid traffic is that it’s not at the mercy of Google search results. That’s right: even Google’s “predictably unpredictable” algorithm can’t affect paid traffic. Hence, you won’t have to change the SEO strategy on your page a thousand times a year to get those hits.
- Audience surveys prove that the majority of users click on Google ads. Nearly ¾ of them say it’s easier for them to find what they’re looking for. Hence, paid traffic helps people find what they’re looking for much easier and is a boon to the average internet user.
Statistics in Favor of Organic Traffic
- While a lot of users do click on paid ads, they do tend to ignore paid ads in search results. They prefer organic links much more and Google’s algorithm serves up 70% organic links in total.
- Paid ads mostly drive traffic on social media which is still very limited. The number one driver of traffic to content sites is still ‘search results’ which beats social media 3 to 1.
- SEO drives nearly 30% of traffic and 20% of revenue. This return on investment accumulates overtime and content creators establish authority through this method. Visibility only increases through time and stays through the power of organic traffic.
- Local SEO has huge returns on investment. According to studies, 88% of searches for local businesses result in a visit within 24 hours. This is something that is yet to be achieved through paid traffic. Consider hiring good content writing services for this task. They’ll make quick work of any content that you need to generate.
What Type of Traffic Suits Which Types of Content
Nearly 615 million devices on the planet have Adblock installed. The world is in the middle of a transformation as far as content marketing is concerned. Hence, it’s worth considering what kind of content can be marketed through PPC and which can be marketed through SEO.
Since paid advertising is more relative to commercial products and services that type of content suits it better. However, marketing a small blog isn’t the same thing. That requires actual organic traffic to build up through months of consistent posting.
Paid advertising is much better suited to the kind of mass media campaigns needed to promote products. For example, if a film is coming out or a special edition product is being released, paid advertising suits it. However, if regular traffic on a website, blog or a small business website is concerned, organic marketing suits it best. To improve organic traffic on your site you need to consistently post, identify your niche audience and select relevant keywords. Hire content writers to do that for you. They’ll make quick work of landing pages, blog posts, and other content for you.
Benefits of Organic and Paid Traffic
Since the type of content being marketed matters most to PPC and SEO, marketing duality is the best approach. Why should you go for the benefits of one when you can merge them both and reap the rewards?
If the opportunity exists for your company to own a high-value keyword for commercial marketing, then go for it. However, if you’re going for a more long-lasting audience that will come back to your website repeatedly, organic traffic wins.
You also need to take into account the core goals of your current project. Small campaigns to push products and services or a special anniversary warrant paid traffic. Those kinds of events depend on generating hype and getting as many people to engage in a short time.
However, for a more consistent response, you need to bring in traffic that is genuinely interested in your business. This type of traffic can’t be generated through paid advertisements. For that, you need your audience to connect with the core message or service or product that you offer.
Which Type of Traffic Lasts Longer?
I’m sure if you go online and search for something random, you’ll come across a highly ranked search result a decade old. It just so happens that some SEO rankings refuse to go down. This is because some keywords and some content stay relevant for a very long time. That’s something that is yet to be seen through paid advertising. Whatever you may think of paid or organic traffic, you can’t deny the latter is more long-lasting.
To successfully market a business, a product, or service, one needs to use both organic and paid traffic. It’s only logical to use both short bursts and consistent traffic to slowly improve search rankings.