How Is SEO Different
From Paid Advertising?
You have probably heard both of these terms before, but do you know exactly what is the difference?
To start with, we will quickly explain how SEO works.
SEO is a way to make your website more attractive for search engines so that it can get unpaid traffic to you. The way the search engine works is that first, it sends bots called crawlers all over the web. They send snapshots of all accessible content back to the search engine’s servers. Then this information is organized into a searchable list. Lastly, the search engine ranks all the pieces of content relevant to a searcher’s query, using an algorithm, that also has a tendency to change all the time. Tricky, right? So how do you get it right, if you do not know their algorithm?
Some things remain unchangeable, for example, they really value good quality content. Well, not content per se, but they measure the amount of time a user spends on each page. Therefore, the better the content, the more attractive your images and design in general – the more chances you have of a person staying on your website for longer. Other factors are external links to your site, speed, security, etc.
So now you get how SEO works, we can explain the difference. Imagine that a search engine is a library and crawlers are librarians that can recommend a book based on the index they have, that would fit best with your query. Now imagine there is a launch of a new book with a big investor behind it. There are ads and banners everywhere and yes, the book is a big success. However, the marketing campaign will have to come to an end at some point, while the index will stay forever. So even if the investor has paid for the ads, without being indexed properly, when the campaign is finished the librarian might recommend the book that fits the description of the query better in the future.
Having a budget for both paid ads and SEO is great, however, if you have to pick one – pick SEO as it has a longer-term effect.
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