Advertising on Facebook vs. Organic Search Engine Optimization with Google
Is advertising on Facebook the way to spend your marketing and advertising budget? Is it worth the money? Or are you better off saving the money and going after organic search engine optimization on Google?
These are important questions for any business owner but especially so for small businesses or start-ups. It’s extremely important to look for the biggest impact on each dollar spent in an advertising and marketing campaign (otherwise known as ROI – Return On Investment). Advertising on Facebook seems to be the new trend for businesses and many small businesses are debating on whether to use this new trend to boost sales. Hopefully, this blog post will help your research on whether advertising on Facebook is the right move for your business.
Let’s look at cost. Advertising on Facebook is set up the same was as advertising on Google. You have to choose between CPC (cost per click) or CPM (cost per impressions). Then you have to bid on the cost. What you bid determines if your ad is even shown. So now it becomes a game… which has a learning curve… which will cost you. I remember I tried Google ads for a very brief period of time. I only spent a few hundred dollars here and there, but before I knew it, the money added up. Admittedly, I didn’t understand what I was doing and that cost me. That’s what I mean when I say there is a learning curve and it will cost you.
For organic search engine optimization, there is minimal additional cost to your website or blog, especially if you do it yourself. It is wise to purchase a few programs imperative for SEO to aid in back linking (like Social Monkee or EZArticle Link). In comparison to the thousands of dollars you could spend on advertising on Facebook for it to be effective, the cost of organic search engine optimization is a small fraction. You could even pay someone to do your organic search engine optimization for you and still save thousands from the learning curve of advertising on Facebook.
Next let’s look at target audience. When advertising on Facebook, the algorithms do give you a good chance for your ad to hit your target market. The ads that are shown to someone are based on their searches in Facebook, groups they like, fan pages they follow, etc. However, ads are also shown based on one’s friends. So, there is a good chance many of your ads aren’t going to hit your target market.
With organic search engine optimization, you are more likely to hit your target market based on keyword research as long as you are on the first few pages of Google for that keyword. Analysis has shown that most people do not look past the first 3 pages of Google produced searches. So if you’re not on the front 3 pages, you’re not always going to reach your target market. It pays to do organic search engine optimization correctly.
Finally, no matter which method you do choose, it’s important to have solid marketing in the back side to capture your visitor information. Too many small businesses have no way of capturing the information of their visitors and, therefore, have no way of following up with potential customers. This is a big mistake even if you’re not spending a lot of extra money. But it’s definitely not worth your money advertising on Facebook when you don’t have a way to capture your site visitor’s info. Therefore, marketing giveaways or newsletters or any kind of freebie on your website where you provide your visitors with something of value in exchange for their information is critical when you’re driving traffic to your site. One of my past mentors once said “The fortune is in the follow-up”. If you don’t have your visitors information, then you can’t follow-up with them. Potential sales are lost.
The bottom line is, whether you choose advertising on Facebook or organic search engine optimization to drive more traffic to your site, your site needs to have the right marketing in place to convert your visitors and make them paying customers.
Until next time…
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