If you have a website then getting it listed on Google is a must. Without your site being listed on Google customers are not going to be able to find your website and ultimately contact you. There are two different ways to get your site listed on Google. ‘Organic’ listings and ‘Pay Per Click’ (PPC) Google listings. But what is the difference and which is best for your website?
What is an organic listing?
An organic listing on Google is technically a free way of getting your site listed on the search engine. Google provide a service called webmaster tools which allows you to submit your website and sitemap showing where your pages are located. Once that is done Google will crawl your website and list the pages that they find. However, being listed on Google is not always going to mean that people will be able to find your website. Even if your site is listed you may not be appearing high enough on the search results for keywords related to your business. For example, an electrician who works in and around London would want to show on Google if someone searched ‘Electrician in London’. This is where SEO comes in.
SEO (search engine optimistation) is the process of optimising a website towards certain keywords and is how to get your website listed and ranked higher for searches related to your business. Click here to read more about SEO. Although SEO is technically a free process it takes a lot of work and there are special techniques to get the best results. So to get better results you are best to go to a web design company or SEO specialist.
What is a paid for listing?
A paid for listing is the adverts that appear at the top of a Google search and are labelled as ‘Ad’. These listings are set up through Google Adwords which is a service that allows you to pay for your website to show on certain keyword searches. This works on a pay per click basis, so you will only pay for the listing when someone clicks on it. This is an instant way of getting your website to show on Google and there are companies who offer to manage your Adwords account for you.
Which one is best for my website?
This is entirely dependent on the type of results and customers you are looking for. If you are looking for instant results and traffic then PPC can be a better short term solution. Organic listings can take time to get to page 1 of Google for specific keywords but once you’ve reached your goal, organic listings generally require a lot less time and money to maintain the position compared to PPC listings which require ongoing payments to continue appearing at the top of Google. Also some people can be put off by the adverts on Google and are more likely to click on the organic listings below them. Some say only 33% of web users will click on a sponsored search engine listing!
If you would like a quotation for SEO or Google Adwords management contact us and we will be more than happy to help.
