With the infinite number of websites available online today, search engines have had to work harder to filter through all the results! Search algorithms take many elements into account when evaluating your website, and it can be difficult to understand exactly how to get your business closer to the top. We often discuss search engine optimization as a good marketing strategy, but search engine marketing encompasses more than these organic efforts.
Search engine marketing is the overall term used to describe a business’ attempt to promote their brand on search engines. The two strategies commonly employed are search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click (PPC) advertising. Below is a quick breakdown of both search engine marketing strategies!
Search Engine Optimization
Search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo organically rank web pages, local listings and other content based on relevancy to the search terms. The process of helping those search engines find and understand your content is called search engine optimization. SEO involves a number of factors (learn more about those factors here), but the general idea is to use keywords in your website’s content and meta information to inform search engines about the content of each page of your website, listing or blog. This strategy takes time for the search engines to re-index your website, but will help your business get found by people searching those keywords.
Pay Per Click Advertising
In addition to organic page rankings, search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo also display paid results called pay per click ads. PPC is a performance-based advertising model where the advertiser pays a set fee for each click on their advertisement. These advertisements are separate from the organic rankings displayed in search results, so they are not directly tied to relevancy to search terms. Each search engine offers their own platform to help you build your ads and suggests bids based on the popularity of keywords and phrases. Once your PPC ads start running, you can start seeing results right away in the form of visits to your website.
SEO vs. PPC
So, which search strategy is best for your business? It’s likely a combination of both! While your search engine optimization efforts help you organically increase your rankings over time, PPC ads are great for kick-starting your online presence. Be wary, though – PPC campaigns typically require a larger budget. In addition to paying each time a person clicks your ad, you will also likely need a professional to help you write the ads and optimize them for your audience. PPC ads can yield great results, but just remember that those results will slow down when you decrease your budget or shut off the campaigns. SEO is an ongoing, longer term strategy that will give you a better ROI, but PPC ads can help supplement your organic search efforts.
For more resources on handling SEO for your wedding business, check out some of our past posts on search engine marketing!
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