I recently read an interesting article Bitwise that discusses the advantages and disadvantages of blogs versus pay per click advertising (PPC).  This article just reiterated how much more potential there are in blogs than any other form of web marketing.  Even the so called disadvantages of organic search outweigh the advantages of PPC.  Not only is PPC expensive, but there is a statistic that I had recently seen that states organic searches are clicked on 99 times out of 100.  So, all that money you are paying for the 1 out of every 100 people who are on the web is just not worth it.  Actually, take a look for yourself:


Advantages of Organic Search

+ Visitors Are Free – Visitors that find you through organic search results are totally free, so there’s a very high ROI on those clicks.

+ More Clicks – More searchers click in the organic search results than the PPC ads, so a #1 ranking in organic will bring you more targeted traffic than paying for #1 placement via PPC.

+ More Trust – Most searchers trust Google, and when they see that Google considers your site the #1 authority for their search term, most will inherently trust you as well, making it easier to convert those visitors into customers. 

+ Less Long Term Financial Investment – The initial investment in an organic search campaign depends greatly on the competitiveness in your industry.  It’s important to think of it as a long term investment.  You won’t see immediate results, but by investing a little time and money each month, you can gradually build your site up to attract loads of free targeted traffic.


Disadvantages of Organic Search

- Ranking Takes Time –However, if you set up a blog under your subdomain you can start seeing noticeable traffic increases within a few weeks to a few months. It all depends on the competitiveness of your industry. 

- Requires An Initial Investment in Your Website – The initial investment will still cost you much less than PPC.


Disadvantages of Pay-Per-Click Advertising

- Every Visitor Costs Money – Some visitors may remember your site and come back again, but overall when you stop paying, the visitors stop coming. 

- A High Converting Website is Critical – A good PPC campaign can drive lots of targeted traffic to your site, but if your site doesn’t convince those visitors to convert, it’s all wasted money.  A good web marketing company will help to optimize your site to convert. 

- Competition is Growing – The amount of competition for those top 10 ad spots is growing every day.  This can only drive the cost per click up over time.


Even the “disadvantages” of organic search are minor.  The benefits of blogging for search engine optimization are far better than the advantages of using PPC.  The majority of our clients come to us because they are tired of wasting their money on PPC.  If you want to see results, start blogging!