If you are trying to drive more traffic to your website, it is important to keep the middleman in mind – the search engine. Out of all the search engines on the internet, Google has the lead with more than 92% of all searches. This well-oiled machine is the primary platform for increasing a business’ online presence.

 

If you spend a lot of free time on the internet or you are familiar with search engine results, usually the top result will have an “Ad” sign beside it. Companies pay Google’s AdWords program in order to be placed in these top slots. Even though this may attract people to your website, consumers have learned to navigate around traditional forms of paid advertising like Google AdWords and tend to avoid these results knowing it was paid. Therefore, pay-per-click (PPC) might not be the best option for you if your desire is to increase and optimize your website’s traffic.

 

On the contrary, organic search provides trust and credibility to users. Ranking higher in organic search results (within the first 5 to 10 links on Google’s search engine result page) implies that the website in question not only has authority on the subject, but it also communicates to consumers that this website is a more desirable choice than its competitors. To be the top result requires some investment in the creation of high-quality content, the main qualifier for a high-ranking website. Your content needs to be informative and reliable, in addition to being optimized for that particular search engine.

 

This is why you will need to have either internal staff or a third-party responsible for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to create content packed full of long-tail keywords and backlinks to your website. If you are doing this internally, it can be really time-consuming and frustrating, especially if you do not have a specialized team. As your business grows, it is important to consider the value of having a high-quality team of content writers that can optimize your content correctly, in order to drive up traffic to your website.

 
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In the end, there are a few things to consider when deciding how you will attract more traffic to your website. Your time and resources are the most important. PPC and SEO are marketing efforts you should consider, but both have their own set of benefits and drawbacks.