Practically all companies will embark on some form of online marketing or web optimisation. Whereas digital display advertising is often more a direct sales advertisement, search engine optimisation is a more subtle approach which enables users to search for your product or service which provides a more indirect sales method, as opposed to an obvious banner advertisement or pop up. Search engine optimisation and digital display advertising do go hand in hand and you would be unlikely to replace one with the other. Having said that, understanding the different benefits between the two and how they can work for you and your business is never a bad thing, as it is always good to keep your options open.

Online advertising is one of the leading forms of medium now and it is obvious that it is very effective. However, as a nation we have become much more media savvy and are using the internet a significant amount more than we were even a couple of years ago. Whilst you could argue that this surely means we should use online marketing more, the truth is that as people become more familiar with the world wide web, advertisements such as pop ups risk the danger of becoming more of a nuisance than an effective communications channel.

Search engine optimization and social media marketing are in their own way forms of online marketing; however they are less intrusive than a pop up advertisement. The key point to remember about a higher page ranking and a strong presence within social networking sites is that the user is choosing to visit these pages and is actually seeking out the information as opposed to it being forced upon them.

Arguments favouring digital display advertising could state that this type of advertisement is less cluttered and the link from the advertisement goes straight through to your website, whereas SERP’s and microblogging have a lot of other information surrounding them and provide a lot more choice for the consumer in terms of competitor sites. That being said, for an online banner advertisement to be effective, the user is still required to click through to your website and actively choose to view it.

Whilst there are positives and negatives regarding both forms of online awareness, the truth is that a good online marketing strategy will need to include an element of both SEO and SMM, in addition to link building. The trick to making it successful is to get the right balance and not put banner advertisements in places they may be deemed awkward, whilst at the same time not using subtle search approaches when a more robust and obvious advertisement would work better. Relevance and placement is the key to both these this succeeding, so knowing your audience and their trends is crucial. There are also other online options which bridge the gap between the two, such as sponsored links, which can give you the best of both worlds. Whichever avenue you choose to go down, as long as you are driving traffic to your website and getting results, then you know it is working.