SEO or Yandex.Direct

The more tools for attracting clients become, the more specialists “pull the blanket over themselves”. For several years now, the debate about which is more effective: Yandex.Direct or SEO? In this article, we will compare the two tools and close this issue for good.

What is Ya.Direct

It would be more correct to call this tool contextual advertising, because it is not at all limited to ads in Yandex.

Contextual advertising is an advertising tool that allows you to display your site in a highlighted block above all search results and below – after all, marked “advertising” in small print. This is a paid tool and will work as long as you keep up with the price competition. As soon as your competitors outbid you, you will either move to a position below, or be kicked out of the ad unit.

The benefits of context:

• The ability to get clients in a matter of hours, which you will need to set up advertising.
• The ability to adjust the time and geography of impressions in order to exclude inappropriate impressions and stop ad serving outside of business hours.
• Targeted impressions only. You choose the requests for ad impressions yourself.
• You pay for clicks. This is the most acceptable method of payment, thanks to it you will receive only targeted customers.

Cons of context:

• High degree of competition. In small towns where 3-5 firms compete, the situation is still bearable. But, in Moscow and the region, hundreds of companies are fighting for several spots in the ad unit. CPCs are getting so high that it is not always possible to recoup the cost of advertising on the first sale.
• Not everyone understands how to write the right ad. Because of this, there are big problems and distrust of advertising tools.
• There is no protection from the actions of competitors. One new player in the market with a large advertising budget is enough to significantly reduce the effectiveness of your advertising.
• Not suitable for products of narrow topics and those that do not buy over the Internet.

What is SEO

SEO or search engine optimization is work aimed at making the search engine “like”, so that it considers your site to be of high quality and “worthy” to be in the first places.

Search engine optimization can be considered a “shareware” method. You, one way or another, will have to invest your time in this business. And an entrepreneur’s time is money. Or you will have to hire a SEO to take care of your site.

Pros of using search engine optimization:

• The sites on the first page of search engine results account for about 80-90% of all traffic. A little more than 10% of people are ready to crawl on the second search page. By being on the first page, or even better in the TOP-3 organic search results, you will collect more customers.
• The context stops working the moment the ad account is empty. And the results of SEO – optimization will stay with you forever.
• A client who came to you from organic search results can cost 2-10 times cheaper than a client from the context.
• Smart search engine optimization includes: marketing, site usability by visitors and other parameters. This is more complex work than advertising.

Cons of using SEO:

• Long terms. Website promotion and optimization can take from 3-6 months if the site has been posted on the Internet for some time. And it can take up to a year if the site is brand new.
• There are no exact guarantees of the result. It is impossible to predict in advance what position your site will take and whether it will be able to break into the TOP. But that the positions will improve and the traffic will increase – that’s for sure.

What to choose

The most suitable tool should be selected depending on the specific situation:

• Promotion of a news site. The priority will be SEO promotion. Basically, you will get to the site through search queries.
• Promotion of the company’s website. Definitely contextual advertising (yandex direct and google ads). If your services are searched on the Internet, then you can advertise them. Use special landing pages – landing pages to receive traffic from context – to maximize profit. In the future, connect seo.
• Landing pages or landing pages. Initially, they have much less opportunity for promotion in search engines. Therefore, the main traffic to them comes from contextual advertising.
• Online store. Initially, use contextual advertising to attract your first visitors. In the future, try to promote product cards for low frequency queries for the best return.

Have you noticed common points? In the beginning, when no one knows about you yet, it is recommended to run traffic out of context and get the first sales. Then, in parallel or in a few months, launch active search engine optimization and optimization. Your goal is to make sure that you don’t need paid ad traffic over time.

Outcome

SEO and PPC advertising are not competitors. These are two independent tools for attracting customers. Yes, they each have pros and cons. Yes, there are practically no guarantees of the result anywhere. But this is the world of entrepreneurship.

When you start promoting your site, try to launch contextual advertising to get the first sales and at the same time start the process of seo promotion and optimization. This way you will efficiently collect all possible traffic and you will not need context in the horizon of one year.