What are the disadvantages of SEO vs Media buying?

[Dustin Barruela]

Im not sure if posted on the right community. But ill gladly move the post just in case.

So my question is.

What is the disadvantage of SEO vs Media buying? Should one person just stick to SEO or also do Media buying?

Also, what is the difference between black hat and white hat seo?

Do you think SEO is the best way to drive traffic? Need your help guys. Thanks.

Edit: i know i should do a google search for this. but i need to hear it from you guys, not some blog or anything.

 

[Klayne]

Hi there. Not the most experienced person in media buying, but I know enough to give you a comparison between SEO, which is my expertise.

What is the disadvantage of SEO vs Media buying?

Biggest disadvantage is, that SEO require a lot more waiting upfront, meaning :
If you have a new website, an assuming you know your shit when it comes to SEO, it still will take months, before you will start to get any decent traffic.
On the other hand, with media buying you can start getting traffic in the first day if you have the budget.

Advantage for SEO is that it can be done for free, and the growth usually increase after a while quite a lot without insane money spent. And the traffic is quite passive, assuming you don't get fucked by Google.

In essence media buying in a way can be done free too ( not really ), by replacing buying traffic from source, but instead generate it yourself from free platforms ( think forums, blog comments, social media )

Any smart marketer will always use as many sources as possible, as it will increase your reach ( traffic ), its more secure, if one source goes down.

What is the difference between black hat and white hat seo?

Black Hat - Things google really doesn't want you to do and often go into the shady side of the things. Should be used on long term projects/sites, as there is a much higher risk of being penalized by our friends from google.

But ...

It can be extremely effective. You can rank extremely fast and cheap, in competitive niches if you know what you do.

Examples : PBNs, mass link building, SAPE ( links from russian link farms ), 301 redirects which are spammed to death.

White Hat - Doing SEO according to Google guidelines ( in essence its not, but its much closer to them, as any linkbuilding is considered against Google guidelines )

Takes much longer time, quality and budget ( usually ). But the results are more long term. Also doesnt involve spamming shit ( which kinda is a shitty thing to do, but who am I to judge )

Examples : Building relationships with other bloggers, link outreach, broken linkbuilding, quality comments on releated sites etc.

Do you think SEO is the best way to drive traffic?

There is no best way. It all depends on what you want to achieve, your budget, your knowledge, timeframe.

In the end, its all up to you.

Klayne

 

[Dr. Forum]

I am that person who believe so much in SEO because it defines the required standards that your blog or website should be as far as ranking is considered. It makes you have quality work and therefore attracting genuine traffic. I hate things that are bought especially leads. Media buying may just not work as expected even after spending a lot of money on it.

 

[Happy Marketer]

SEO is the best in all of the case. If you know what I mean. You don't need to pay any longer when you get ranked by the search engine. You'll get auto traffic everyday after doing some sure thing. Always do long tail keyword research and the success will knock your door soon. On the other hand media, buying/paid traffic required money. If you don't spend any money then, you'll not get any traffic.

 

[The Mad French]

With SEO, you will have to put countless hours of work to hopefully rank for some terms 6 months or a year down the road.
And when you are on top, there is little place to scale and risks of going down at any moment.

On the other side, with media buying (and other paid traffic sources) reaching a good ROI will take significantly less time and the potential of scalability is way bigger.
But yeah, to make money you have to spend money, it's the basics of business.

I think we have each one our point of view.

 

[williamjohn]

According to me SEO is the best way to do. Do effectively to rank keywords in the search engine.

 

[chanel majic]

SEO is the best way to drive traffic to your website. Having a proper use of unique related keywords in your articles will help search engines find your website.

 

[Majid]

SEO is the Best in all of the case. If you know what I mean. You don't need to pay any longer when you get ranked by the search engine. You'll get auto traffic everyday after doing some sure thing

 

[priyarana]

I am strongly in the favor of SEO i.e. Search Engine Optimization. SEO is the process of introducing your website to user and Google and a technique to increase the ranking on Search Engine like Google. Furthermore, it is a most effective way to escalate traffic on your website. It is divided into two categories:
1. On-Page SEO: Apply only on the live website. There are various steps in this:

• Analysis the whole website
• Keyword Research
• Meta Tags (Titles & Description)
• Alt Tags
• Keywords related to services within 100 words of content
• Google Webmaster tag
• Google Analytic code
• Boost website speed
• Heading Tags
• User-friendly URLs
• Inter Linking
• Responsive Design

2. Off-Page SEO: This technique implements on the others website for getting backlinks which are important to increase your website ranking on Search Engine.

• Blog Commenting
• Business Listing
• Guest Post
• Resource Link Building
• Directory Sharing
• Forum
• Question & Answer
• Ping submission
• PPT sharing
• PDF Sharing
• Social Bookmarking
• Image Sharing

 

[affilirant]

Media buying as its more consistant, Google doesnt care about you or your brand so when Google decides to update its algorithm you could easily find your SEO efforts destoyed by how Google wants to rank sites so then you have to start all over again and SEO is very time consuming. I dont see this as a good solid business plan as you are a constant slave to Google worrying when and how the next algorythm will impact your site.

Media buying is more consitant, less time consuming with better ROI and with the huge amount of media buying options out there you are not a slave to one company as you would be with Google SEO.

 

[Ian_murphy]

SEO of course. It guarantees long-term results, in spite of media buy.