If you have the budget for both methods, it would make sense to use both Organic SEO advertising and Pay-Per-Click advertising because both have advantages. That's the problem though - paying for both can be extremely costly, especially if you want to maximize the visibility of your web site. And trying to do either one of them with a limited budget Is not a good idea at all. If you limit your spend on either, then neither will get the results you want.

So, if you have a budget for online marketing, which method is best for your site?

"Organic" Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Studies done a few years ago (but still accurate today) show that Organic SEO can give you some significant advantages that PPC advertising can't provide. Research shows that an overwhelming 70% of all searchers click on the Organic listings rather than the Sponsored - or paid - listings. That's a significant percentage of the searchers out there spending their time on organic listings.

Unbiased The indications are that people trust the Organic listings much more than they do the paid listings because of the "unbiased" way that the organic result is listed. Because the Sponsored link was paid for, searchers think that they bought their way onto the higher rankings (which they did), rather than earning their ranking by being "relevant" to what people want to find.

In fact, some studies show that less than 15% of searchers trust paid results and almost 30% have been "bothered" or "annoyed" that the paid ads are even shown. Another in-depth study found that 67% of searching customers distrust paid listings. How would you like to have a searchers looking at your listing and thinking that your ad can't be trusted?

Clearly, organic listings are trusted much more than paid listings for being relevant to their search. That's one reason why one study found that, before they'll click on a paid listing, people are six (6) times more likely to click on a few of the organic listings first

Sales Value Because organic search results are considered unbiased, the percentage of searchers who actually engage a web site is close to 18% higher on organic listings than they are on paid results. Those kinds of numbers mean sales dollars being generated as a result of organic positioning. The value of the visitors searching on organic listings, therefore, tends to be higher because the PPC searchers are sometimes considered "tire kickers," more interested in the price of a product than they are the overall value that the product will bring them.

Awareness Not everyone knows the difference between Sponsored listings and Organic listings, but the numbers are growing. In fact, about 58% of Google's users already know the difference. As the number of knowledgeable searchers grows, so will the effects on the marketplace relative to Trust, Sales Value, Bias, Costs, etc.

Cost The costs keep going up for PPC. Over half (57%) of companies polled complained that the price for certain keywords are too expensive and that the cost doesn't justify the results. Especially during the holiday season when keyword costs can double. Compared to the relatively stable costs of organic listings expense, PPC rising costs are a definite disadvantage.

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