What is Word Bidding?
Whenever you search for anything on the web, you'll notice that -- in most cases -- the very first results of the list are subtly highlighted. That's because these websites are bidding on those terms. Basically, they pay a company like Google to appear in the top spot. What you're seeing is really just a targeted advertisement.Depending on the number of players and size of your market, keyword bidding can get very expensive. However, the ROI can be huge since most people searching will almost always click on the top results. Very few people actually ever leave the first page and it's extremely unlikely to be found if you appear after the third page.
In highly competitive markets you may see these paid results change frequently. That's because companies are constantly outbidding each other for the top spot. A number one sponsor today may also suddenly drop off the radar if their budget runs out tomorrow.
Unlike print advertising where buy rates are generally based on a period of time (i.e. one month, one week, etc.), internet advertising charges for each click your ad receives (known as an impression). So each time someone clicks on your ad, the cost is deducted from your budget. And if a surge suddenly occurs for the keywords you're bidding on, you'll get a lot more hits than you anticipated. As a result, your budget runs out more quickly than planned, and from there the top spot goes to the second highest bidder.
What are Organic Search Results?
Everything below the paid results is known as "organic". That's because these companies haven't directly paid to appear in that position. They've managed to get to that spot by optimizing their site properly using keywords relevant to that particular search. Keywords can appear on your site as meta tags, page name, site name, or even simply in the content of articles like the one you're reading now.
Search engines use a myriad of calculations to rank sites for organic results and it's not as simple as using the keyword(s) over and over again (known as keyword stuffing). In fact, doing this can actually get your site banned by some search engines. There truly is an art to writing content for the web and people familiar with writing for print use an entirely different set of rules, so they're not usually best suited to write for SEO.
Registering your domain for longer periods of time is another trick used to rank higher with organic results since some search engines hold longer registration periods in high regards. This is because -- as a general rule -- sites that register their domain name for longer periods are not being used for scams and tend to be legitimate businesses. Obviously, search engines strive to provide valid and relevant results so that those doing the searching will continue to use their tool.
But remember, these are just a few of the basic rules regarding SEO and keyword bidding. So if you're planning on using either of these methods to increase traffic to your site, it's important to establish your goals and understand what keywords are relevant to your industry before you invest the time and money into the actual execution.
