There are various techniques to increase traffic to a website, but SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) are essentially the two most crucial methods.
Both revolve around keywords, thus there are some parallels between them, but they are essentially different.
Here are some suggestions on when to utilize free On-page SEO and when to use SEM (Paid On-page SEO) in order to understand how to use them effectively. However, it is imperative to first define what we put on the best free SEO tools list and what belongs in the SEM area before moving on to the actual tips.
What Are Free SEO and Paid SEM, respectively?
SEO and SEM are defined in a variety of ways. In a few, they are often used interchangeably, which isn't accurate given how diverse they are, or SEO is referred to as a part of the larger SEM category, which is also a little unclear. Some of the cheapest SEO tools might even be better than the highly paid ones. It depends on their quality and use.
Here is how we define SEO in order to clear up any misunderstandings. SEM is everything else you pay for, including PPC traffic, whereas SEO includes all link-building and on-page optimization activities with the aim of achieving good positions in organic search. You might wonder if this implies that SEM includes paid links. They are simply black hat and do not belong to either SEO or SEM, thus they don't.
Difference between free and paid SEO tools.
Although it doesn't cost money, free SEO isn't always the best option. SEO offline tools are equivalent to unpaid tools. Since time is money and these free SEO efforts have cost you so much time, you are aware of how expensive "free" can be when you consider how much time you spend on on-page optimization and link building.
However, there are situations where SEO is all you need. These situations include:
Fewer popular keywords, particularly long-tail keywords. Because it takes less time and effort to rank well for less competitive terms, investing in SEO is more likely to be profitable. This is especially true for long-tail keywords since you won't get many clicks even if you bid on them. When long-tail includes the long-tail keyword a few times on the page and it's not uncommon to rank highly even without many (or even any) backlinks. Keywords it is feasible to rank well even without any special SEO operations.
When your finances are tight, when you are on a restricted budget and, ideally, have unlimited time, SEO is not only the best option—it is the only option. If you have a small budget, you might be able to purchase some cheap PPC clicks, but in reality, 100 or 200 clicks won't make much of a difference. You should in this situation just devote time to SEO.
You eventually realize that using free SEO alone won't provide you with the outcomes you want. When websites that previously performed well for your keywords are pushed down in the search results, as happened with another modification to the search algorithm, such as the Panda update, you may experience this feeling very strongly.
Nearly everyone will use paid search during such periods. SEM (Paid SEO), though, is a good alternative even when times are not dire. It excels, for instance, in the following circumstances:
For keywords that are popular. It is too difficult to dominate competitive keywords organically. PPC is significantly more affordable than organic for competitive keywords when you consider how much effort-free SEO requires. Naturally, if you begin with AdWords and $3–$4 clicks, Although the costs will be high if you test out some of the AdWords alternatives first with competitive searches, it's likely that you'll get better results for a lot less money than you would with AdWords.
Whenever you require a lot of traffic quickly. It takes a long time to get results with free SEO. You won't want to wait if you have a tight schedule, which means you occasionally need traffic. It wouldn't be useful to rank well for Christmas-related keywords in February, for example, if you offer Christmas items and your keyword phrases are too competitive. As a result, you could want to use PPC in November and December to attract massive traffic. If you want a result, PPC is really your only option in this scenario if you want to start SEO at that time because it will launch just in time for Christmas the next year.
To gain more visibility, you can use paid SEO tools to help your website fare better. For a certain keyword that counts, the majority of experts believe it to be in the Top 5, or perhaps the Top 3. In other words, even if you manage to rank 7th or 10th, for example, it won't be as nice as being in the Top 5, but you will still have spent a lot of money on free SEO. You should take into account paid listings if you want to gain more visibility. You are getting greater visibility because paid listings for a specific keyword are placed above organic results, but you must also keep in mind that consumers are typically more likely to click on organic results than on sponsored listings because they perceive organic results to be more real.