Optimize Your Pages Even If You’re Using Paid Advertising

I have nothing against paid traffic like Google AdWords. They are a vital part of your marketing strategy and you should set aside a budget for it. However, you must understand the way Internet users behave these days. They are getting clever.

When you do a search for, let’s say, “decorative flower pots,” you will get  paid advertising across the top, or the right side of the results page, depending on the search engine you used. In Google, there are paid advertising spots as I describe above. They are prominent and your eyes are drawn to them almost immediately. However, many users today can tell that these are paid ads. They know that those websites paid to be there and will sometimes think that they don’t deserve their click. Instead of clicking on them, they actively ignore them and proceed to the natural results. In many cases, their eyes have adjusted to this behavior and know exactly how far to scroll down to the organic search results.

And that is why even if you’re using paid advertising,  you should optimize your pages for your chosen keywords. Imagine if you did a good job for the phrase “decorative flower pots,” your website’s link would appear in both the paid advertising spots, and in the natural results. Two listings is always better than one. To the clever user, they won’t even know that it is the same company. Try using satellite sites to optimize pages for individual products or services. They are a good way to capture targeted traffic.

Don’t just rely on paid advertising. Make it a company policy to apply adequate search engine optimization practices.