A question we sometimes get from our clients, is if paying for Google Adwords affects your organic search rankings or not? The official answer is no, not directly. Google has done a good job of keeping it's paid search listings and it's organic search listings very separate. This leads to a very open and organic internet, which is good for all of us. But there are some indirect benefits that you may see to having a paid listing.
Below we're sharing a video from Moz, in which, founder Rand Fishkin explains how it all works. But essentially his points can be summed up as follows:
- Google studies have shown that the more times a user sees your listing, the more likely they are to go to your site.
People are likely to trust a brand they are more familiar with, and seeing your listing more than once in the results may lead more people to click on your organic listing.
So having an ad as your first listing, and an organic listing closely follow may increase the likelihood your organic listing is clicked.
This is probably not the best reason to have a Google Ad, but it is an interesting effect.
- Users previously exposed to your brand through a paid search may be more likely to engage with your organic content in the future. Higher engagement can lead to a higher ranking, and familiarizing your potential clients with your brand is always a good idea. Clients won't come to you if they don't know about you! Users are less likely to buy / connect with you if it's the first time they've heard of you. So the extra exposure goes a long way.
- Paid ads may lead to other helpful SEO items
If someone goes to your site because of an ad, they may experience your product, like it, mention it on another site, leave you a review, share your post on social media, the list goes on. All of these items will give you a boost to your rankings!
Google wants to see how useful your site is to your users, and so you may be able to give that metric a boost, by getting in front of your potential clients and bringing them to your site to experience your amazing goods and services.
In short, though you will not see a direct correlation from paying for your ad and your organic rankings, there are intrinsic indirect benefits to giving your site a bit of a paid boost! This is the exact reason we offer our Top of Mind Online Advertising Package. Connect with us today to see how we can help potential clients find your business, and benefit them by providing the service they are looking for.
For more information you can read more indepth on the original article from Moz here.