When you first set out to market your website online, you have an important decision to make: will you first focus on paid or organic search? The simple truth is that neither strategy is “better” than the other, as both have advantages and drawbacks.

Today, let’s examine major reasons why organic might work better for you than paid search.

1. Searchers Trust Organic Results More

Since anyone can just pay to climb to the top of PPC listings, why should consumers trust those? Conversely, when you hit the top three spots consistently across multiple organic search results, you’ll win a whole lot more trust and credibility.

The result? More clicks and sales over the long-term.

2. It’s Easier and Less Costly to Maintain Your High Rankings

Achieving high organic rankings is the difficult (and expensive!) part. Thankfully, once you’ve reached the top, staying there isn’t as grueling. Your search listing can rank high for months—or even years—with little additional work or investment.

3. Organic Works Better for Products and Services with Longer Buying Cycles

If it takes months for a business owner to research your service and compare it with multiple other companies, organic is superior. After all, organic search intent is usually to learn more. Conversely, PPC searchers are often prepared to make a more imminent purchase.

4. Organic Search Works Well for Service Purchases

Product customers place an order quickly and are then typically done. Services, however, involve much more thought (and, eek, hassle). Will the contractor provide a good service? How much will it cost? What are comparable options? Customers also often want to get a good long-term relationship out of the deal so are thus more careful and perform more research before hiring a company to perform a service.

5. SEO Boosts Your Rankings on All Search Engines

With PPC, you’ll get a top position on Google or Bing—that’s it. When you optimize for SEO, you’ll gain visibility on all search engines.

6. SEO Also Boosts Brand Awareness

In addition to reaping the afore-mentioned SEO benefits, your branding will benefit as well. For example, even if people don’t immediately click on your search listing, they’ll become familiar with your name. And, after seeing you pop up several times, they might realize it’s time to give you a closer look and click on your search result.

Wrapping Up

Using a combination of SEO and PPC generally works best. Nevertheless, if you have a limited budget to spend right now, there are plenty of reasons to choose the former over the latter.