Creating an online presence for your business is critical in the digital age. That’s because most people seeking information about anything, or even looking to make a purchase, are likely to do so online.  In essence, how visible your business is on Google (the most dominant search engine) can make all the difference between success and failure in business.

There are two approaches to gaining visibility on Google. The first one is paid search, whereby, you pay for your business to gain visibility. The second one is paid search, whereby, you build visibility by generating high-quality content that ranks for Google keywords. Whichever approach you choose, has its pros and cons.

If you choose to go for paid search, the main advantage you get is that of time. You significantly cut on the time it takes to rank on Google. That’s because, Google will display your content at the top of its search results for the related keyword searches. However, there are downsides to using paid search. One of them is trust. When you pay for content, Google usually indicates that it is a paid ad. This automatically reduces the level of trust that viewers have in your content. In fact, due to a high incidence of paid scam ads, people tend to associate paid search results with scams and bogus companies. In essence, unless you are an established business, paid search can negatively impact on your business’s online brand.

The other disadvantage of paid search is that it is costly. Depending on the results you intend to achieve, Google will charge you per click. Sustaining this long enough to achieve the desired results can be a challenge, especially for small businesses.  It gets even more costly when you are not getting the results you want in terms of conversions.

On its part, the biggest drawback to organic search is that it takes time. Depending on the nature of the business, and the quality of content you are putting out there, it can take over a year to gain any kind of visibility on Google organically. However, once you manage to rank on Google using organic content, the advantages are limitless. One of the advantages you get is that of trust from online users. People trust content that ranks organically, which means, whether you are selling something or running an informational site, the conversion rate is higher.

Secondly, once you rank with organic content, maintaining yourself there is easy. As long as you keep generating good quality content, your ranking will remain high. You will have created an online piece of real estate that you can use to make sales, and also earn a passive income. The other advantage of organic search is that it is cheaper. That’s because, you won’t pay anything to rank on Google, while you get to reap all the benefits.

For maximum results, you can choose to combine the two and engage in social media marketing as well. At the end of the day, it’s all about getting your business ranking well on Google, for maximum visibility.