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Every website owner has surely heard of SEO. This is the factor that determines how high our site ranks in Google search. However, this is not the only way to ensure success – other marketing strategies may work for some businesses. Learn why, for some companies, using Google and Facebook ads may be a better idea than SEO efforts.
Positioning is not the only marketing tool
Companies that rely solely on SEO often forget that it is one of many marketing tools. While a site’s position in search results is obviously important, SEO efforts are not everything. As a business owner, you need to understand your target audience and how they make purchasing decisions in order to choose the most appropriate marketing strategies to reach new customers.
Positioning won’t work for newcomers to the market
Take, for example, a situation in which a company has created a new product or is offering a new service that no other company has yet offered. This is a complete novelty, no one has come up with this before. Now such a hit is certainly VR – virtual reality, which can be experienced, for example, while playing computer games. Since this is new, not long ago no one would have thought to search for “VR experience Warsaw” in Google search results.
In this case, choosing the right keywords would be redundant – if no one types them into Google, they won’t give us any results. That’s why, in a situation where we are offering a complete novelty to the market, whether it’s in the gaming industry, catering, fashion, cosmetology, electronics, positioning may not be the most effective marketing tool.
You can’t win with SEO from strong competition
If there are strong and, most importantly, wealthy companies in your industry that spend several thousand each month on SEO efforts, it can be virtually impossible to compete with them. This will be the case for industries like banking and insurance. Instead of worrying about your budget, bet on other tools that may be neglected by the aforementioned companies. You can then find your niche and get better results.
Don’t use positioning when you need fast results
For most industries, positioning brings results – but no one will say they are fast. Usually you have to wait a few months for increased sales and more visitors to the site. If you offer a seasonal product or service, or want to advertise a one-off offer (for example, for Black Friday or Christmas), positioning won’t produce the right results. It is then worth betting on other methods of advertising.
What instead of positioning? Google Ads Advertising
All the problems we just listed can be solved by Google campaigns. Both of these marketing tools are obviously useful, but nevertheless very different:
- Google Ads is a paid advertisement with a specific duration, while SEO is a long-term activity – it involves continuous work and optimization
- positioning can only produce real results after several months, while Google Ads can provide almost immediate increases in site traffic
- Google Ads as a marketing tool can be turned on and off at will, and positioning provides consistent organic results over the long term
- SEO strategies work best when targeted at a smaller set of keywords and long tail phrases. In contrast, there are no rigid restrictions on the number of phrases you can target with Google Ads campaigns.
As you can see, these are radically different tools. If we are wondering whether to bet on Google Ads or SEO, the answer will depend on the type of our business, our budget and the time frame in which we want to get results.
Facebook ads or SEO – Google isn’t everything
Google Ads are not the only alternative to SEO. We can’t forget about Facebook here. Social media is a powerful marketing tool, so such campaigns can be very effective. One of the best advantages of Facebook advertising, aside from the fact that it takes less time than SEO efforts, is that you can always start with a smaller budget. With the reports available on Facebook, you can see what results your campaign is achieving and possibly change its parameters. The return on investment here can be much higher than with SEO efforts.
Facebook also allows multiple options for targeting ads to relevant users – with very high precision. It also provides extensive opportunities for long-term optimization if you analyze your campaign data.
Facebook advertising or SEO – which is better to bet on?
A Facebook campaign will be a good idea if you have a small budget. We want quick results – there is still time for SEO planning. It is also a question of who you want to reach and how. On Facebook, we can reach people in a specific city, neighborhood, with given interests, age, gender and living situation. If you have a lot of information about your target audience, Facebook advertising can bring big results.
Google Ads and Facebook Ads will help your SEO.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that investing in Google Ads and Facebook Ads does not in any way interfere with SEO. If we want to advertise our one-off offer or a new product, we can help ourselves with ads on Google or Facebook, but that doesn’t change the fact that in the long term we can continue to emphasize positioning. The best results will sometimes come from a combination of the two tools.
