This is a question I am often asked when I sit down with a company to talk about their online sales and marketing goals. Nonprofits have the same goals and objectives – they want to be found online and in search engines, and they want to do it the most efficient way with the best use of their budget.
The first style of search marketing is Pay Per Click (“PPC”), which is basically just as it sounds. We consumers – or customers – of the search engines see results displayed that are paid for by companies that want to be connected to the keywords being searched. These are the results that usually show up at the top of a search engine page. Sometimes they’re in colored boxes and are marked as sponsored links. If I want to be seen in the sponsored search results for the words “Homeless Shelter” I would pay to have my company listed in the hope that a consumer would click on my link. The resulting click would be purchased and paid for based on a market price for that keyword. The results are instant and can be used to get a quick result for a campaign that will only have a short life span. I consider this akin to renting a home before yours is ready to move into. You pay for the space, but once the rent check is written and sent there is not much benefit after that point. There are many search companies out there that can handle your PPC needs and can direct you to the best possible results.
Organic Search results or SEO as it is called is not actually paid for except with more of a long term campaign of content being generated and an overall strategy of how to garner the “long tail” of search results. These are search results that come with some hard work and some time and effort. These are the results that most consumers pay attention to as they are usually more in tune with what the searcher is looking for in a result. Most people tend to click on the organic search results rather than the paid search results.
The answer to the question in the title of this post should be based on the intentions of the organization, its goals, and the objectives of their campaign. If the strategy is to get immediate results that won’t stay active after the campaign and if you want to spend money up front with the initial purchase of the ad space in search results, then your best bet is to go with a PPC campaign. If your intent is to grow your search presence over the long term and keep a presence online with those key words as your mainstay, then a more intensive, long term approach should be taken. This, too, will cost money but it is more cost effective over the time of the campaign.
Related Posts
Tags: nonprofits, Organic Search, PPC, SEO, social media
