We Love The Web - Blogorhea

'Should we promote our site using Google AdWords, or invest in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?' Which is better? I get asked this a lot.

SEO is a basic 'Thing you should do'. If you don't, you are throwing money away.

Not doing SEO on your site is like spending £10,000 on a brochure but keeping it in a box at the back of a cupboard. Silly, right? SEO improves the chances of your customers finding you. The basics are not even technical, but they do take time (this will be the subject of a 'how-to' very soon).

If you haven't done the SEO basics then you shouldn't even be considering AdWords.

Let's assume you've done the basics. Should you invest more in SEO, or spend money on AdWords?

That depends.

AdWords are good when:

• You've done all the basic SEO stuff
• You have a specific product, service or event to promote
• You need to get the word out 'Right Now!'
• You are prepared to spend time testing and measuring what leads to sales and what doesn't. If you don't, then you'll get a lot of click-throughs, but no sales.

Bad things about AdWords:

• As soon as you stop spending, the traffic stops.

SEO is good when:

• You have a reasonably stable target audience or range of products.
• You don't have a huge budget.
• You want to do some work now and reap the benefits for the next year or more.

Bad things about SEO:

• It's hard to test and measure results quickly.

We have used AdWords in the past with good results to refine keyword choices for optimisation. We use AdWords to work out what SEO we should do!

So: we have a very low budget Adwords campaign on a number of different keywords. At the end of the month, we look at which Adwords generated the most sign-ups/sales/enquiries. We then know how to optimise the site. This is a good way to make sure your SEO budget is used effectively.

Whatever you do, make sure you measure the outcomes to see what you get back from the money you spend.