Increasing Your Website Visibility – Paid or Organic Approach?

If you’ve gone through the trouble of creating a website, the chances are that you want your target audience to be able to find it. Whether you’re using your website for the convenience of your customers and spreading brand awareness or you’ve started an online business, increasing your website visibility will be the key to your success. 

Photo / Alizée Baudez

Broadly speaking, two main approaches to increasing website visibility are organic and paid marketing. Both approaches have their pros and cons, but which is the better option for your business? Let’s find out. 

Organic marketing in a nutshell

Organic marketing is a set of tactics and strategies that aim to increase your website visibility and, subsequently, website traffic without using any paid advertising methods. In essence, this approach involves publishing high-quality, relevant content across different online channels (your website, social media, forums, review websites, etc.) and optimizing it to reach your target audience. 

Ideally, your target audience should be able to come across your content and discover your brand completely naturally, simply by browsing their social media or looking up relevant information on their terms—without paid ads and promotions prompting them. 

Considering this marketing approach prioritizes “natural” brand discovery, its effects aren’t always immediately visible. You must keep improving your organic marketing strategies and optimizing your content until you start seeing results. 

Examples of organic marketing 

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a prime example of organic marketing. It involves improving the overall website user experience to drive more traffic. 

Now, the specifics of SEO are different for various businesses. For instance, you’ll need law firm SEO services if you’re in the legal industry. If you’re in ecommerce, you’ll need ecommerce SEO services. Regardless of your niche, you’ll want to follow specific universal guidelines. 

SEO is all about improving the UX, so anything you can do to achieve that will be beneficial. That can mean using high-performing blog keywords to reflect your target audience’s wants and needs and publishing high-value, informative, and engaging content. It also includes optimizing your website for mobile viewing, linking to reputable websites, and increasing page load speed. 

The better the experience you provide, the more you’ll appeal to your target audience, and the higher the search engines will rank you on their results pages. That will improve your organic marketing and drive more traffic to your website. 

Besides SEO, you can improve your organic marketing through social media. You can publish eye-catching content, engage in the comment sections, guest blog on reputable websites, implement link building, and focus on other relevant activities. 

Paid marketing in a nutshell 

As the term suggests, paid marketing involves using paid advertisements to catch the attention of your target audience. It’s what you think of when you hear “marketing”—newspaper ads, TV commercials, paid ads on Facebook, etc. 

While it’s commonly seen as a more forced approach, it certainly has perks. You can specifically target any preferred demographic and ensure your ads find them on any channel they’re using. You don’t have to wait around and hope prospective customers find you “naturally.” If you pay for the advertising space, they will see your brand. 

Another fantastic benefit of the paid approach is that it delivers immediate results. If your campaign is well-designed, you’ll see an increase in website traffic the moment you launch it. Furthermore, the increase should be noticeable for the entire campaign duration. Moreover, you can quickly improve ROI in your digital marketing campaigns since you’ll have immediate insights into their effectiveness through your KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). 

Examples of paid marketing 

Google Ads are some of the clearest examples of paid marketing. When a user inputs their search query, they appear at the top of the page (with a notable tag “Ad”). As a general rule of thumb, paid ads are part of pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, and you’ll have to pay a fee per each click your website gets because of them.  

You can use keyword targeting in your paid ads and ensure that your website is always visible whenever your target audience does a related search. 

In addition, you can publish ads that users see depending on their general online behavior rather than their current search queries. Such “personalized” ads most frequently work on social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. 

Besides paid ads, you can create or publish sponsored content, partner with influencers, or join an affiliate program to reach a broader audience and increase your website’s visibility. 

Which type of marketing is better for you? 

Organic and paid marketing both have their unique pros and cons. Organic marketing is a long-term strategy that helps build brand awareness and improve online visibility naturally. However, it will take a while for your target audience to notice your website.

On the other hand, paid marketing is instantaneous and immediately reaches a much broader audience. The problem is that its effects are only noticeable for the duration of your campaign. 

So, which one should you choose? 

While paid and organic marketing are often pitted against one another, the truth is that you’ll need both for success. Paid marketing is a fantastic way to get your foot through the door and gain attention. Organic marketing is an excellent way to stay relevant and build brand loyalty.