Organic and paid traffic: SEO and SEA. What are the differences between these two types of traffic? What are the pros and cons of each? And which one is the best choice for you? Read more about it in our new blog.
What are the differences between SEO and SEA?
SEO and SEA are two different ways of driving traffic to your website. Both have their own advantages and disadvantages. We will start, however, by explaining the difference between the two.
What is SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization. It means collecting traffic organically, without paying for it. With SEO you build authority: search engines like Google start to see your website as an authority, which means you rank higher in the search results. So with SEO your focus is on ranking higher in the organic search results of search engines.
How do you do that? You focus on specific, important keywords in your industry and optimize your landing pages for them. For example, you work the selected keywords into the text on your page. You also create content that is relevant to your industry, such as blogs. A website’s usability plays a role in SEO too. Think of aspects like site speed. Another important part of SEO is building your link profile. This is when other sites refer to your website, for instance when they link to your relevant content.
What is SEA?
SEA is the paid traffic to your website: search engine advertising. SEA often refers to Google Ads, since Google is by far the most used search engine. Google Ads are the ads at the top of the page when you run a search in Google. Whether your ad shows up there depends on your bid and on other settings in Google Ads, such as ad quality. With SEA you pay per click, not per impression.
The results outlined in red are SEA, and the results outlined in yellow are SEO.
The advantages and disadvantages of SEO and SEA
SEO
Advantages:
- When you focus on SEO, and therefore on relevant content, you give visitors the information they are actually looking for. If they click your search result, they land on a page with relevant information and they stick around. With an ad that is often not the case, and the visitor is gone again just as fast.
- With SEO you invest in long-term findability. If you put a little less time and energy into SEO for a while, you are not immediately back to zero, which is what happens with SEA.
- If your website appears in the organic search results, the click through to your site is free. With SEA you pay per click. So with search engine optimization you do not have to deal with ad budgets and bidding.
Disadvantages:
- SEO work takes more time and energy than simply creating an ad for SEA.
- It can take a while before you see results from SEO: it is a gradual process and it often takes several months before results come in.
- With SEO the rule is: the content of a page has to be authentic and relevant. That makes the odds of ranking higher better, because there is less competition. When information is unique, Google is happy to put your page in front of users. So this does call for knowledge and expertise in your industry.
SEA
Advantages:
- Your website is immediately visible at the top of the results. The SEO results only appear once you scroll further down, and that takes more effort from visitors.
- SEA is a good way to give certain parts of your business a boost in findability. Think of a campaign for a temporary promotion or a search for new employees.
- Success is easy to measure with SEA. In Google Ads you can see exactly which terms brought visitors to your website. You can adjust your campaign based on that.
- You can reach a specific audience with SEA. For example, you can target your ads at a particular location. That is not possible with SEO, where you focus purely on the keyword.
Disadvantages:
- Visitors can see in the results which listings are ads and which are not. Some people skip paid search results and go straight to the SEO results.
- As soon as you stop advertising, your ads no longer appear in the search results. And that means you no longer get traffic to your website that way either. When you stop with SEA, that effect kicks in right away.
SEO or SEA?
Where should I put my budget as a business owner? SEO or SEA? It is good to know that SEO is the foundation: your website needs to be solid in terms of usability and content. With SEA you drive visitors to your website, but that foundation does have to be right. So SEA needs good landing pages too.
Beyond that, it mainly comes down to the goal you have for your website. Do you need results quickly and do you want to see whether you are reaching the right audience before you start focusing on it with SEO? Then SEA is a handy choice. Is a long-term investment an option? Then SEO is smart. A combination is often a good idea: SEO and SEA complement each other. Information you get out of Google Ads, such as insight into certain keywords, can also be used for SEO. And a good landing page built through SEO is needed to get visitors to convert once they have clicked your ad.
JKC Media helps you with the SEO and SEA for your website
We get to work on the SEO and SEA for your company’s website. That way you rank higher in the search results with an SEO campaign. Want to know more? Feel free to get in touch.
