That is the question a few of my clients have been asking lately. “Why should I pay for search engine traffic when I can just get it for free?” Is the economy REALLY that bad these days that people are questioning the value of paid traffic in the name of trimming marketing budgets? 

With search traffic, nothing is truly free. If you outsource your SEO initiatives aren’t you “paying” someone to get you “free” traffic? And if you take it on yourself then surely there is much time and effort that is spent trying to elbow your way to the top.

There was a time many years ago when I myself thought PPC was, for lack of a better term, “for suckers”. Nowadays I wonder why anyone wouldn’t do it knowing how there are plenty of analytics tools out there that can really uncover the value of spending money to make money.

Here is another basic concept: You have WAY more control over the traffic that you pay for rather than the “free” traffic from organic rankings. YOU decide the messaging that appears on your ads and YOU decide exactly where you want the end user to enter your site.

So yeah, you have to pay for it, but what you get in return is complete control. Can you say the same about your “free” search traffic?

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About The Author

Andres Galdames is a business analyst at Lyris. He is an expert in integrated online marketing and pay-per-click campaigns.

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