What happens when you search an organic keyword on Google? Immediately you are shown a group of ads:

Right below that, we are given map listings of the closest businesses who offer what is being searched for:

And then we are finally given a list of organic results which is where all SEO efforts go:

Most of us remember back when Organic Results were the first items to show in a Google Search. Back then, SEO was definitely the way to go to make your business rank in the first position on the first page of Google. Today, that is not true.

Organic CTR’s have dropped 37% since 2015. That is not surprising since trending SEO tactics are constantly changing, and many become obsolete after Google’s algorithm updates.

As Google maintains focus on ads, map listings, and GMB accounts – it’s easy to see that using SEO as a primary marketing strategy is not enough. That’s not to say that SEO is irrelevant. In fact, SEO works very well along with other, better, marketing strategies – like paid advertising.

Paid Advertising And Google Ads

After Google introduced us to Google Ads, the online search engine structure changed everything about the way businesses market online. Google is the largest search engine on the internet. According to www.internetlivestats.com, as of December 2012, Google held 65.2% share of web search volume worldwide, with 114.7 billion searches that month.

Google developed Google Adwords (change to Google Ads in July 2018) as a service to clients who wanted to advertise on the Google Search Engine. Google Ads quickly took off as advertisers realized how paid advertising easily brought new visitors to their websites and increased the number of conversions they were getting.

Now, PPC (pay-per-click) is the most effective digital marketing strategy to help businesses grow. The ads show at the top of the page before the viewer has time to see anything else, making the searcher more likely to respond to that search result than an organic one. However, there is a group of the population that, in recent polls, have stated that they never click on ads. In those circumstances, seeing a company’s name in an ad AND in Organic results implies relevancy and will seem more credible to searchers.

Search Ads can increase your brand by 80%. People who have never heard of you may see you in an ad and gain interest in your business. This is a great way to pull in new visitors to your website and grow your client base.

SEO is not an irrelevant marketing strategy. In fact, it works great when working hand in hand with paid advertising. It just is not the most effective digital marketing strategy. To get your name to show up, you want to make sure you are showing above the organic search results. To get people to go to your website, you want to make sure you are showing in the top 3 positions on Google – in the Google Ads.