Paid Search (AdWords and Others)

Paid search, also known as "pay-per-click," provides the opportunity to bypass SEO and directly advertise for keywords. In the figure below, you can see the difference. Here we're showing a Google search, so the paid search is Google's own "AdWords." The "organic" or "natural" or "unpaid" search results appear on the left. The paid results appear on the right.

The advantage of organic search is that users are 8 times as likely to click on an organic term.

The advantages of paid search are that a) it is instant - your ads can start showing minutes after they are established, and b) users are 1.5 times as likely to purchase something from a paid search visit. That said, the math is still in favor of organic search. Google AdWords and other services charge as little as $0.05 per click (you pay nothing if the visitor doesn't click on your displayed link), or over $100.00 per click, depending on how competitive the keywords are.

Above, for our client Greensburg Divorce, you can see they are on Google Page 1 three times in the organic section, and once in the paid section. In this case, the paid advertisement is probably not worth doing, except to keep the competition from appearing.