Is it more effective to hunt with a scoped sniper rifle or a sawed off shotgun? Investing in SEO or display ads will generate returns, the question is what’s the difference and which is better for your website?
What are Display Ads? – Think billboards, flyers, posters and banners on the web.
What is SEO? – Think content created in a specific way to maximize your content’s ranking in search results and thus driving more traffic to your site via clicks. See our more detailed Guide To Search Engine Optimization.
If investing in either SEO strategies or display ads will help drive traffic to your site then why would you choose to invest in one before the other? Content created using SEO strategies will continue to drive traffic to your website long after you have created the content. Display ads on the other hand will only drive traffic to your website while you are spending money to have them displayed. Display ads can be even less effective if you follow a non-strategic approach and display them on a website that is unrelated to yours or on a low traffic website. It’s like putting up a billboard ad in the middle of Wyoming. Who drives through Wyoming?
If you learn about SEO strategies for yourself instead of paying for someone else to create your content your investment drops from dollars to time. The more time you spend creating quality SEO content the easier it gets and the more content you can create. The more content you have created the more inbound traffic from search results, ever increasing your return on investment.
We’d love to hear your opinion on Search Engine Optimized websites vs Display Ads in the comments below.
For SEO tips follow @Keeganlarson