Maintaining the highest position in Organic Search

What are the risks involved?

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Search engines are an important way of obtaining information on the Internet while Google.com is the most popular search engine today holding over “70% of the search market share”. HubSpot (2019)

SEO is a set of technical tasks helping organisations secure top positions in search engine results Sungin et. al., (2016). Gupta et. al., (2013) outlines that the key benefits of SEO are wide like, tracking a website, ranking, and increasing brand awareness.

This blog aims to provide a wide variety of research outlining what is important when thinking about ‘maintaining the highest position in organic search’ and the processes a company can follow summarising tips and guides while critically evaluating any potential risks involved.

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Importantly, organic search is any search result coming from a search engine that cannot be affected by paid advertising like google ads. Organic search results will be ranked according to their relevance in terms of search words. The results that come up will not include adverts but you will be able to find some famous search snippets like maps, images, articles. Clearly, ‘organic search’ is only used to describe if a website or pages appear on google listings without the company or individual placing an ad for them.

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The actual process happens when searching. According to EVOK (2019), “when someone asks Google for information on a specific topic, the search engine serves up what it thinks are the most relevant pages. These organic results appear just below any ads and ranked based on their quality and content.” Although, most of the literature focuses on paid clicks, the bulk of most of the traffic that is generated online comes from search engines using organic links. (Jerath et. al., 2014) Moreover, advertisers engage in SEO to improve the “organic clicks rather than purchase sponsored links for paid clicks (Berman and Katona, 2013)

Organic Search VS Paid Search 

The challenges that the digital marketing world is facing rarely have clear cut solutions. The only reason one would choose between organic or paid search is to increase the websites visibility.

Web presence simplistically means ensuring that the website is rich in content containing valuable information for any potential member who want’s to read it. By focusing on both organic and paid search you can benefit from the fast acting nature of the paid campaigns while also driving the long-term results through effectively by optimising the content of the website. It is easy to see and understand where you are at the moment by taking an SEO audit. (Baye, De los Santos and Wildenbeest, 2015)

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You already know that having a prominent online presence supported by an effective SEO strategy  is indispensable while the goal of SEO is to influence the position of a website in search result pages of the search engine.

Certain benefits and drawbacks can help evaluate if they are satisfactory or not.

Organic Search Benefits

1. Trust and credibility: High search rankings imply industry authority, leadership, exerting trust to the average consumer.
2. Evergreen: Specific listings may rank high long after the content was created.
3. Ranking: Once you get high rankings, it’s easier to keep those rankings.
4. Click through rates: For “top of funnel” search terms, I.e., don’t show immediate purchase intent, the click through rates are better for organic search results. That’s very important for businesses that have a longer buying cycle.
5. Inbound marketing: Develop the content assets to achieve it. This is important for higher involvement purchases. Users interact with content as they move down the purchase funnel. (Khraim, 2015)

Organic Search Drawbacks

1. Time: Depends on how competitive the keywords and it might take months or even years to become involved in the high rankings. Can a company afford to wait this long? The call is on them depending on their strategic initiatives.
2. Resources: high rankings require creating content that can use SEO tactics in order to achieve it and this can be difficult, frustrating and time consuming for the internal or external staff who are needed for these functions.

(Khraim, 2015)

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Lastly, everyone has a different point of view on SEO methods, but even so they all have similar long-term goals, so you need to be innovative and original. The bottom line is that you must decide if you will use paid search or organic search for your marketing as seen above all depending on the needs and opportunities that you have. You will need to decide which method gives you the best CTR or ROI and whether paid or organic search is better depending on your own needs.

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References

Baye, M. R., De los Santos, B. and Wildenbeest, M. R. (2015) “Search Engine Optimization: What Drives Organic Traffic to Retail Sites?,” Journal of Economics & Management Strategy, 25(1), pp. 6–31. doi: 10.1111/jems.12141.

Berman, R., and Z. Katona, 2013, “The Role of Search Engine Optimization in Search Marketing,” Marketing Science, 32, 644–651.

Forsey, C. (2018) The Top 7 Search Engines, Ranked by Popularity. [Online] Available at: < https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/top-search-engines (Accessed: March 15, 2019). > [Accessed 16 March 2019]

Gupta S., Miglani S., Sundriyal V. (2013) Search Engine Optimization Techniques. Vol.2, Issue 9, Published: International Journal of Engineering Research & Technology

Geekschip (2018) Best SEO Tips to Boost Website Traffic in 2018 – Geekschip, Geekschip – Blog. [Online] Available at: < https://www.geekschip.com/blog/seo-tips-to-boost-website-traffic/ (Accessed: March 15, 2019) > [Accessed 16 March 2019]

Jerath, K., L. Ma, and Y.‐H. Park, 2014, “Consumer Click Behavior at a Search Engine: The Role of Keyword Popularity,” Journal of Marketing Research, 51, 480–486.

Khraim, H. S. (2015) “The Impact of Search Engine Optimization on Online Advertisement: The Case of Companies using E-Marketing in Jordan,” American Journal of Business and Management, 4(2). doi: 10.11634/216796061504676.

Organic Search vs. Paid Search: Where Should Credit Unions Focus? (2018) [Online]Evok Advertising. Available at: < https://www.evokad.com/credit-union-organic-vs-paid-search/. > [Accessed 16 March 2019]

Sungin L., Wonhong J. et al. (2016) Search engine optimization. Vol. 34, Issue 2.

Sellers, P. (1989), “Getting customers to love you”, Fortune, March 13, pp.38-49

-This is a student blog post.-