We spoke to Simon Schnieders, Founder at Blue Array, to discuss the potential of organic search vs paid media, and how this can be directly applied to the financial sector.

For readers not familiar with Blue Array, could you provide a short overview of what your services entail?
Blue Array isn’t like a traditional SEO agency. As SEO specialists, we demystify the process and achieve exceptional results in collaboration with our colleagues and clients. From the day we launched in early 2015, we’ve pioneered a unique hybrid of agency and consultancy that we call ‘consulgency’. It’s an approach that allows us to give our clients the individual attention they need, at the same time as using proven techniques and tools honed in-house in an agency environment.

Can you explain the power of organic SEO vs PPC?
There are several ways you can reach a ceiling with paid search, and there’s only so much you can spend. However, the opportunities with organic search are endless, Google processes trillions of searches every year, and still, 15% of those queries have never been seen by Google before. Organic search results are based on relevance to a user’s search query.

With paid and organic content, the reality is that most users will seek out organic over paid. Over 25% of people click the first organic Google search result when searching for a query. With organic search, there’s an initial investment and leap of faith, but it does pay dividends in the future. When it comes to paid search and paid social, it’s a tap that can be turned on and off dependent on budgets; whereas when you open a tap on organic, it’ll continue to flow for many years to come.

How can you tell whether a business would benefit more from organic SEO or PPC? Does it depend on your current situation, objectives and marketplace?
For early-stage businesses, paid search is a great discovery mechanism. It gives businesses the ability to see if search is something that’s effective for them. They just need to ensure they’re using their budget carefully, as there tends to be large amounts of budget being burnt on broad match keywords and Google isn’t one for offering refunds if you misstep. Example: you’re a reseller of Nike trainers, do you want to rank for ‘Nike’? Or do you want to rank for ‘Nike trainers – next day delivery’. So many businesses burn budget on big generic terms where user intent isn’t clear. It depends where you want to be, but ‘Nike trainers – next day delivery’ shows clear user intent.

If you have well-finessed campaigns that tap into user intent and searches, it’ll improve the viability of search being a key marketing acquisition channel for you. If it’s proven to be a key acquisition channel; organic SEO is the next logical step in your marketing journey.

Do you think that user intent is why organic search can provide an improved ROI over traditional forms of paid media?
In terms of conversions, data tells us that organic has a far higher conversion rate than paid search. Research shows that organic searches are 8.5x more likely to be clicked on. Which is clearly because of that trust element. I like to think that paid search causes ‘drive by traffic’, whereas organic creates ‘destination traffic’, as a user’s query is being answered in full.

Do you think there are specific reasons why organic search has a growing demand? Is it because it’s cost-effective, or the pandemic?
The global pandemic has had a real impact on paid budgets. Due to the uncertainty of the past few years, businesses were told to halt marketing spend to preserve cash flow. There’s been a real peeling back of the onion when it comes to marketing, as businesses have had to get to the core of what’s still working for them with reduced budgets. Businesses know that it will take a while to get results, but that organic traffic can offer shelter with economic downturns.

The renewed interest in organic search is from businesses that had invested in organic SEO prior to the pandemic and were continuing to see results. Because businesses had seen such an impressive ROI during a turbulent time, they wanted to double down on that opportunity. When the music stops, SEO is the first to grab a seat.

While SEO is neither cheap nor easy, it will generally be more cost-effective than all other marketing tactics for delivering brand awareness and relevant traffic to your website.

How can organic search work for the financial sector?
There are really successful companies within the financial sector that are using organic search well, like Simply Business, the UK’s biggest business insurer. They’ve essentially dominated the market through serendipitous search. Serendipitous search isn’t talked about enough in any sector. It’s the idea of discovering things by fortunate happenstance, a result of thinking long and hard about user personas.

When doing informational searches on Google about starting a business or entrepreneurship in general, Simply Business will always pop up in some shape or form. They use organic search as an opportunity to deliver great informational content, whilst gently reminding you that you’re going to need public liability insurance on your business journey.

When looking at the financial sector and SEO, it’s always incredible informational content that delivers results. Rather than going after those core converting terms everyone is going after, the idea is to service more informational queries, as that’s a great way to attract new users that result in conversions.

We spoke to Simon Schnieders, Founder at Blue Array, to discuss the potential of organic search vs paid media, and how this can be directly applied to the financial sector.

For readers not familiar with Blue Array, could you provide a short overview of what your services entail?
Blue Array isn’t like a traditional SEO agency. As SEO specialists, we demystify the process and achieve exceptional results in collaboration with our colleagues and clients. From the day we launched in early 2015, we’ve pioneered a unique hybrid of agency and consultancy that we call ‘consulgency’. It’s an approach that allows us to give our clients the individual attention they need, at the same time as using proven techniques and tools honed in-house in an agency environment.

Can you explain the power of organic SEO vs PPC?
There are several ways you can reach a ceiling with paid search, and there’s only so much you can spend. However, the opportunities with organic search are endless, Google processes trillions of searches every year, and still, 15% of those queries have never been seen by Google before. Organic search results are based on relevance to a user’s search query.

With paid and organic content, the reality is that most users will seek out organic over paid. Over 25% of people click the first organic Google search result when searching for a query. With organic search, there’s an initial investment and leap of faith, but it does pay dividends in the future. When it comes to paid search and paid social, it’s a tap that can be turned on and off dependent on budgets; whereas when you open a tap on organic, it’ll continue to flow for many years to come.

How can you tell whether a business would benefit more from organic SEO or PPC? Does it depend on your current situation, objectives and marketplace?
For early-stage businesses, paid search is a great discovery mechanism. It gives businesses the ability to see if search is something that’s effective for them. They just need to ensure they’re using their budget carefully, as there tends to be large amounts of budget being burnt on broad match keywords and Google isn’t one for offering refunds if you misstep. Example: you’re a reseller of Nike trainers, do you want to rank for ‘Nike’? Or do you want to rank for ‘Nike trainers – next day delivery’. So many businesses burn budget on big generic terms where user intent isn’t clear. It depends where you want to be, but ‘Nike trainers – next day delivery’ shows clear user intent.

If you have well-finessed campaigns that tap into user intent and searches, it’ll improve the viability of search being a key marketing acquisition channel for you. If it’s proven to be a key acquisition channel; organic SEO is the next logical step in your marketing journey.

Do you think that user intent is why organic search can provide an improved ROI over traditional forms of paid media?
In terms of conversions, data tells us that organic has a far higher conversion rate than paid search. Research shows that organic searches are 8.5x more likely to be clicked on. Which is clearly because of that trust element. I like to think that paid search causes ‘drive by traffic’, whereas organic creates ‘destination traffic’, as a user’s query is being answered in full.

Do you think there are specific reasons why organic search has a growing demand? Is it because it’s cost-effective, or the pandemic?
The global pandemic has had a real impact on paid budgets. Due to the uncertainty of the past few years, businesses were told to halt marketing spend to preserve cash flow. There’s been a real peeling back of the onion when it comes to marketing, as businesses have had to get to the core of what’s still working for them with reduced budgets. Businesses know that it will take a while to get results, but that organic traffic can offer shelter with economic downturns.

The renewed interest in organic search is from businesses that had invested in organic SEO prior to the pandemic and were continuing to see results. Because businesses had seen such an impressive ROI during a turbulent time, they wanted to double down on that opportunity. When the music stops, SEO is the first to grab a seat.

While SEO is neither cheap nor easy, it will generally be more cost-effective than all other marketing tactics for delivering brand awareness and relevant traffic to your website.

How can organic search work for the financial sector?
There are really successful companies within the financial sector that are using organic search well, like Simply Business, the UK’s biggest business insurer. They’ve essentially dominated the market through serendipitous search. Serendipitous search isn’t talked about enough in any sector. It’s the idea of discovering things by fortunate happenstance, a result of thinking long and hard about user personas.

When doing informational searches on Google about starting a business or entrepreneurship in general, Simply Business will always pop up in some shape or form. They use organic search as an opportunity to deliver great informational content, whilst gently reminding you that you’re going to need public liability insurance on your business journey.

When looking at the financial sector and SEO, it’s always incredible informational content that delivers results. Rather than going after those core converting terms everyone is going after, the idea is to service more informational queries, as that’s a great way to attract new users that result in conversions.