The difference between organic listings and paid listings.

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

• 
  kenny duarte: Explain the difference between organic listings and paid listings. What do you think the
  benefits or drawbacks are to each? Which has led to more traffic and conversion on your website?

• This answer was selected as Best Community Answer by the Expert Panel

  
  PromozSEO: Organic listing - Done with SEO, needs time, efforts and skill
  Paid listing - Done with Google Adowrds or Bing AdCenter/Ads, needs money and skill
  
  SEO pros - ;
   ; 1.  ;Gets more clicks than paid links
   ; 2.  ;More clicks/visits mean more conversions in general
   ; 3.  ;Less costly
   ; 4.  ;Cost per Acquisition is cheaper
   ; 5.  ;Long term benefits
   ; 6.  ;Completely measurable
   ; 7.  ;Good for small businesses
  
  SEO cons -
   ; 1.  ;Needs enough time
   ; 2.  ;Needs real skill and patience
   ; 3.  ;Ranking is not guaranteed
   ; 4.  ;Irregular and unpredictable algorithm updates
   ; 5.  ;Ranks may fall
   ; 6.  ;Continuous process which never ends
   ; 7.  ;No official technical supports from Search Engines
  
  Paid listing pros -
   ; 1.  ;Instant ranking
   ; 2.  ;Instant visitors
   ; 3.  ;Instant conversions in general
   ; 4.  ;Completely measurable
   ; 5.  ;Technical support team available
  
  Paid listing cons -
   ; 1.  ;Put enough money to get shown, though money required for clicks
   ; 2.  ;Money exhausts, ads disappear
   ; 3.  ;Position is not guaranteed, depends on the bidding price and quality score in general
   ; 4.  ;Click Bombing
   ; 5.  ;Conversion is not guaranteed but money will be deducted per click
  
  In general organic listing will lead around half of the total traffic, provided site is optimized and ranks well for different keywords.
  
  Conversion depends on so many things, page layout, site speed, quality of contents, position and design of Call to Action, competitions, quality and reputation of services or products etc.
  But in general, SEO will lead to maximum conversions.
• 
  Tony “Tiggerito” McCreath: Is this a test question?
• 
  kenny duarte: Thanks
• 
  kenny duarte: +Tony McCreath ;No , is a research question. I wanted to get insight from different sources.
• 
  Tony “Tiggerito” McCreath: So we pass :-)