In the hyper-focused trappings of our little universes, we often forget that not everyone “speaks the local language”. For example, I often assume that most lawyers I talk to about their websites and “getting found” understand the difference between organic results and paid results in search engines. However, this is not always the case. Here is a quick explanation of the key differences.
image by: Google Webmaster Central
In the image above, we can see the two main areas of Google’s search results page. These are the “Organic Search” results and the “Paid Search, Adwords” results.
While most people believe that the major difference between the organic results and paid results is that advertisers pay for paid listings and don’t pay for organic, I will structure the distinction a little differently.
The truth is, companies “pay” for both. That’s right! They pay for organic results too. The difference is, they don’t pay Google (at least we hope not).
The true difference between “paid search” and “organic search” is that with paid search (as shown above) advertisers pay Google for the clicks they receive to their website through the paid advertisement.
With regard to “organic search” advertisers pay search engine optimization consultants (or spend their own time doing it themselves) to help their website gain more visibility in Google. Either way you cut it, organic search traffic is not free.
The next key difference is volume of clicks. It has been said that there is a 70/30 split between organic search clicks and paid search clicks.
In general, for every 10 searches, 7 click on an organic result, and 3 click on a paid result. Obviously, the audience for organic results is much larger than that of paid (however, there are not shortage of clicks in either area).
Last key difference (at least that I will touch on here), you have more “target control” in paid search, than you do in organic. Let me explain. The link that is displayed in the organic search results is the pages “title” tag. This tag is key to ranking for a particular keyword. That means, that changing your title tag may effect your position for the keyword.
With paid search, you have complete control of your headline, description, display URL, and destination URL (although because of quality score, you may pay a premium if your adcopy isn’t relevant to the targeted keyword). You can control your offer more directly without having to worry about the effect on your position.
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Jeff Berman, is co-founder of AttorneySync.
"Properly marketing a law firm online is about producing relevant content that helps a prospective client understand your expertise and how you are able to help them. Finally, it’s about getting that content found by the people you are trying to help."
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