Main advantages of SEO.
Research shows that some researchers never click on sponsored listings and others don’t realize that these links are paid. Approximately 80% of clicks are on natural listings and 20% on paid listings.
One of the main advantages of SEO is its profitability, since the search engine is not paid to be within it. This is very important for ‘search head’, high volume, low intent searches that are costly in paid search.
The cost of SEO is relatively fixed, regardless of the volume of clicks. After the initial optimization costs, the cost per click is reduced, while paid search is essentially a variable cost.
Therefore, there are no media costs, although the resources are required for key phrase analysis and to complete the optimization of the website pages.
Along with paid search, it offers a very targeted audience, SEO-referred visitors will only visit your site if they are looking for specific information about your products or related content.
Disadvantages of SEO.
The main challenge of SEO is that there are billions of pages in the search engine indexes and their position in the SERPS depends on a constantly changing algorithm that is not published. So getting your pages visible can require specialized knowledge, constant monitoring, and responsiveness.
Consequently, the biggest disadvantage of SEO is the lack of control. You are at the mercy of the algorithm.
There are other possible problems. Sometimes competitors or affiliates can use ethical black hat techniques, putting you at a huge disadvantage.
Also, in very competitive industries, it can be difficult to rank among the top results for competitive phrases and this is when expensive pay-per-click may be necessary.
Due to this lack of visibility, it can be difficult to make a strong business case for SEO, although the benefits to most businesses of ranking number one on Google are surprisingly obvious.
It is quite impossible to predict SEO positions and click volumes, because future changes in the algorithm are unknown. Similarly, you cannot control or predict competitor activity.
Therefore, for a given investment, it is impossible to predict the level of return on your dollar, pound or euro or estimate the likely return compared to paid search or other more traditional advertising methods, where more accurate estimates can be obtained.
This is not to say that estimates of the long-term returns of SEO cannot be made. Always keep in mind that SEO is a long-term strategy and a long-term cost/benefit analysis is needed.