The Power Struggle between Natural and Paid Search

Keywords form the bedrock of any search campaign, be it for search engine optimization or marketing. When you type in a keyword, two kinds of results will show up in the search engine page: the natural search and the paid search.
Natural Search

To get bumped up in a results page for natural search, you must have relevant content and keywords, as well as quality links from other sites. You build up your ranking over time, though if you do things smartly, you can get on top quickly.
How can you do this? First of all, you should maximize the use of your keywords by including it in the title and headings and by using it liberally all over your content body. You can also utilize online tools such as Google Alerts, Google Ad Planner, Google Adwords Keywords, Google Insights for Search and Google Trends so that you can get clearer insights and better knowledge on the keywords to use. You must also update your site regularly with original and relevant content.
If you do all these things right, your site will get to the top of the results page in no time at all. And the effort is well worth it, as people are more inclined to click on the natural results rather than the paid ads. Do things correctly and you’re bound to get potential customers for a long time.
Paid Search

Paid search are sponsored advertisements that you can use to increase your visibility in the search engine results page. It is usually placed on top or on the right side of the natural search. Every time a user clicks on your ad, you will have to pay Google a certain amount. Your ranking in the results page will depend on the amount you are willing to pay for every click, as well as your Quality Score, which reflects the relevance of your keywords.
You will need to bid on keywords and phrases as this is an important part of paid search advertising. Make sure that you bid for keywords that are actually relevant to your company, products, content and strategy. Do not bid for keywords just because they are popular if they have nothing to do with your company.
Bid wisely as well. Avoid bidding too high as the return on investment may become unattainable. Then again, do not underbid as well. If your bid is too low, your listing may end up on the bottom rung of the results that practically no one would see it.
The thing about paid searches is that you must have a budget for it and you must handle the cash flow properly to allow you to keep doing it for an extended period. Remember that you will only get to become visible in the search engine results page so long as you are willing to pay. Your site visits will get an immediate boost because of it. However, once you stop paying, your site traffic will probably dry up almost as fast.