Search Definition

What Is Organic Search?

When you go to any search engine (Google, Yahoo!, MSN Live, Ask.com, or
another) and type in a word or phrase then click “Search”,
you are performing an organic search. This is what millions of people
do every day. Every time someone searches Google, Yahoo!, MSN Live, or
one of thousands of other search engines, they are performing an
organic search.

Organic search results are those results that return information for
specific searches. Companies achieve those rankings either by accident
or because they understand how search works well enough to put together
a strategy that gives them an edge in the ranking wars. This is called
SEO - search engine optimization.

Search engine optimization is the process of testing different
elements of web design and copywriting - on page and off page - to
determine what works best for giving a web page high page rankings in
the search engines. By knowing which factors search engines give more
weight to, webmasters can influence their own search rankings just by
adding or taking away certain elements from their web pages. If you can
tweak your pages well enough to land on the first page of any of the
search engines then you have successfully optimized a web page. Get
that page in the top 3 positions and you have done very well. That is
organic search. If you do it yourself it costs you nothing but time.

What Is Paid Search?

Paid search is the act of paying a search engine for a listing. The
listing can either be at the top of the page, above the organic
listings, or on the side - usually the right side of the search results
page. You will see the phrase “Sponsored Links” or
something similar. Those are paid search results and companies do pay
to have their listings there. But how much?

That depends. Everyone who has a paid search results bids on
keywords. You’ve noticed that the ads appear when you type in a
word or phrase in the search box. Those words and phrases are the words
and phrases that paid search advertisers bid on. The top listing is
owned by the company who has the highest bid or the lowest quality
score. When you strive to achieve higher paid search listings you
should pay attention to your landing page’s optimization quality
as well as your ad’s copywriting quality and relevance to the
landing page.

Well, that’s about it in a nutshell. You pay per click for paid search listings and get organic search listings free.