Pay Per Click or Organic?

• Why Choose Us
• Company Overview
• Meet Our Team
• Frequent Questions
• FWM Press Center

Web Education:

• Web Site Design
• Video on Your Website
• Web Marketing | SEO
• Update Your Site
• Blogs & Social Media
• Google AdWords
• Call Tracking System

what clients say

Got my first case from [my site] yesterday. ...I'm really into this. It's fun.

Alvin Wolff
St. Louis, Missouri Accident Lawyer

I’ve worked with Tom over the last 5 1/2 years and believe he is the only webmaster around who truly “gets it” and understands the most up-to-date, effective and ethical marketing methods for attorneys.
Gerry Oginski
New York Medical Malpractice Attorney

Magic bullet, no; essential pillar of an integrated marketing strategy, yes. Having a Top Rank website is worth it.
Ches Crosbie
Newfoundland and Labrador Personal Injury Attorney
Canada

Foster Web Marketing is a full service marketing company that specializes in helping attorneys develop a practical and profitable internet presence for their firms. We do this by designing and hosting websites that are geared specifically towards obtaining high rankings in search engine categories. We write original content that is specific to issues that are tailored to your practice areas and are important to potential clients. If you are interested in expanding the web presence of your law firm, contact Foster Web Marketing today.

If you have been looking into the brave new world of Search Engine Optimization, you have probably come across two phrases that are used over and over. One is “Pay per click” or “PPC,” and the other is “Organic.”

What exactly do these mean? How can they help your business? Is one better than the other?

PPC and Organic are two methods of getting potential clients or customers to come to your website via the results on a search engine. PPC is a way to pay for prominently placed links that automatically show up at the top of the results page when someone enters keywords that are related to your business. Organic involves getting high rankings without buying them directly, which is a less certain way of achieving visibility. One takes money while the other takes time. Which one is better?

Since each one has good points and bad points, it would be probably be more informative to list the pros and cons of each method rather than definitively say which method is better.

The one major advantage of pay per click is that it is completely hassle free. You simply buy your ads, knowing full well that when the right key phrases are put in the search engines, your link will be at the top of the list. You also know exactly what you are spending and will have a good idea as to what you will be getting in return.

The major con against pay per click is that it can be expensive, almost prohibitively so. The idea is that in order to get the good keywords, you usually have to bid on them. And if you have just started to inquire into the PPC market, you will probably find that many of the good keywords have already been taken. You might find yourself bidding on an obscure combination of keywords that won’t really bring in as many visitors to your site as a more obvious set.

The main advantage of the organic method is that, obviously, it doesn’t cost you nearly as much. You don’t have to buy links from anyone. But the downside is that it takes time and effort, and you are never really “done.” You have to keep your site in good shape with constant content updates and links, and you also have to tinker around and figure out what seems to be attracting the search engines themselves. There is also no real perfect way to figure out if something is working perfectly for you or if it isn’t working at all. After all, you aren’t in the heads of the average internet user, and you can’t mentally predict what route they will take to get to your site. And since the algorithm that search engines use to index and rank sites change on a regular basis, what works great in January might not work at all in June.

So which one should you use? It seems that the smart play would be to do a mixture of both methods. Searching around to see what keywords are available and what the costs are should give you a good idea as to what you should spend, but making sure that you don’t neglect the standard regular updates of your site should also be a crucial part of your site.

At Foster Web Marketing, we handle every aspect of your website, and that includes search engine optimization. We can tailor our approach to your site based on what you are comfortable with and what can work within your budget. To that end, most of our clients have us perform mainly organic methods of SEO, with supplemental pay per click campaigns.

If you are interested in expanding the web presence of your law firm, contact Foster Web Marketing for a free site consultation today.

Have you DOWNLOADED our FREE report?
-Blogging 101 for attorneys.

-How having a blog can help your
website rank better with search
engines and generate more leads
online.

-Easy changes that you can make to
your current blog to get more visits.