A lot has changed over the years in the digital marketing realm. With the introduction of new algorithms and power of AI & ML, online searches are getting smarter and better with time. As a result, there is a lot of competition lately to rank for organic keywords. Any business owner would be eager to drive more traffic via organic searches as they are cost effective. These organic searches are affordable but they take time before generating any tangible results for the business. In this blog, you will get the opportunity to differentiate between organic and paid searches and find out which one is better for your business. 
Organic Search
On an average, roughly 63,000 searches are queried on Google every minute. If you do the math for a year, it will come down to closely 2 trillion searches per year. That number can numb any business owner. As out of the 2 trillion, if your business can capitalize on just 1% of the searches hypothetically, it can make considerable fortune and top the competition. Digital marketers use SEO or Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) to drive maximum traffic to your business website. In the organic marketing, SEM and SEO play a key role. Organic traffic is earned by consistent hard work that the SEO experts do via backlinking and content generation. This process is very tough and it might take months to show considerable significant results. If you are writing the content with all the information briefed in it, the website for such relevant keywords will rank in the top 5 results on the first page.
As per the search trends, the first page of Google’s SERP receives 92% of the traffic. Out of that 33% of the clicks just happen for the first link that is visible on Google for the search results. Meaning, online search seekers believe on the first result for the keywords that they have searched. Even for the purpose of lead generation, most of the digital marketers believe that SEO has 57% of the contribution in bringing considerable business for the clients. A good content, well presented will ultimately fall in the top 5 results on Google. As a result, once the user who is searching for a relevant keyword gets satisfied after reading the content, he/she will be tempted to go for the product. This will happen because the business has been consistent in adding value via a positive content marketing campaign. But paid marketing or paid searches are a little different.
Paid Searches
Paid searches are those results that appear with the denotation ad written below the keywords. Such results always appear on top of the SERP (Search Engine Result Pages) for relevant keywords because the person running such ads have paid Google to show such ads on top. The most striking aspect of such ads is that they generate instant results for the clients. Thus, those who are looking for quick results always prefer to go for paid searches.
Paid Search or Organic Search: Which is Better?
Well, it will be a tough call for any digital marketer but the reality is that as per Forrester’s report, 81% of the customers are looking for the products online. And, out of those, as per the online trends, organic searches have 8.5x times greater chances of conversion. The reason being, customers tend to have the trust based on the contents such organic marketing products use. But when you compare the same with paid searches, they have greater conversion in comparison to organic methods of marketing. As PPC or Pay-Per-Click or paid searches allow to cover maximum territory and it is easier to get on the top in a flash. But again, the paid searches do not have larger acceptance and affordability is an issue. Small businesses cannot rely too much on paid marketing, as they do not have sufficient means and considering that 50% to 60% of the businesses fall in small scale segment, it is undoubtedly questionable that organic searches will go off trend in times to come.
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