The SEO vs PPC controversy has been going on for years. Which is better: simply buying your way to the top of search engines with a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign or developing your own (or natural) search engine marketing strategy using search engine optimization (SEO)? Deciding where your digital marketing dollars should go is difficult for most business owners and often leaves people wondering what is the best strategy.
Is there a right or wrong answer? Could it be both? In order to make this decision, you need to understand the pros and cons of both SEO and PPC.
The main difference between Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) is that traffic coming from SEO (organic) is free while traffic generated from PPC is not free (as the name implies you have to pay a cost per click). This is also the reason why you may sometimes see the terms organic search engine listings and paid search engine listings (or Paid Search Advertising – PSA).
Both SEO and PPC are part of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) which is one of the tools you can use as part of your overall Internet Marketing campaign.
SEARCH Engine Optimization
SEO is often referred to as “organic” or “natural” lead generation. Typically, SEO involves adding your web pages to improve its position in search engine results. Organic SEO contains the assurance that search engine spiders can understand what’s on your web pages and so that, appropriately, rank your site higher than your competitors.
The definition of SEO can change due to industry trends and changes in Google’s algorithm. Despite the changes, SEO is down to providing a website that accurately describes the business activity and provides useful content for both personal visitors and Google search engines.
This may include making sure that the website is up to standard by using clean codes and a friendly search for content that attracts human readers, as well as spiders. Developing incoming links from other sites can depress your “link authority” and improve your ranking. Blogging, social media marketing, and online videos are three of the most effective ways to get quality links.
Benefits of Organic SEO:
- Organic SEO is very expensive. Personnel costs for setting up and managing a PPC campaign are often the same or higher than the SEO staff costs. The difference is that there are ongoing click-through costs for PPC campaigns.
- Organic SEO lasts a long time – a well-designed site can keep a high position in search results after the PPC campaign is closed.
- Search engine rankings are unstable and PPC advertising positions continue to change according to our competing bidding strategies. A well-designed site with the power of good links and excellent content can hold the position of its search engine even if you need to leave it for a month.
Barriers to SEO:
- SEO is slower compared to PPC. It can take months after enlarging your site to start seeing results, and PPC will start to guide you as soon as possible.
- SEO is an ongoing process. Your site will never be 100% “optimized,” it will be more refined as you put more work into it. The good news is that in the future your rates will improve and hopefully you will be reaping the rewards of investing in SEO.
- SEO is time-consuming, especially if you choose to do it yourself. You have the option of buying SEO tools or hiring someone to do SEO for you, but that will end up costing real money, not your time.
Pay-Per-Click Advertising
When you buy visitors or “clicks” to Google or other search engines it is called individual pay per click (PPC) advertising. PPC allows you to quickly use search engine traffic by paying or bidding for keywords related to what you are selling or the service you provide.
Benefits of PPC:
- No waiting: once your PPC campaign starts, you will immediately start to see more traffic, clicks, and conversions. SEO can take months before you start to see your site submit search engine results.
- PPC is awesome and manageable – you set your budget and have a decent idea of how many leads you get. This helps you measure the exact budget for your digital marketing. SEO is not cut and dry, and it can take a long time or cost a lot if the industry or place you want to rank is very competitive.
- Using PPC means you don’t have to worry about search engine algorithm affecting your position. You are bidding on high ground so your natural position will not matter. With SEO, you should make sure that you prepare your site with Google’s best performance standards or you could lose a position or be punished with black hat tricks.
PPC issues:
- You have to pay to get better results and, appropriately, the more you pay, the better the results. The competition for keywords has never been so great. This could mean that you will have to pay more later for the same results you get.
- Researching and selecting keywords for bidding takes a lot of time. Waste management on keywords, measuring returns, adjusting how much you spend, and cleverly playing a PPC game is actually a full-time job. Either you will spend time doing it yourself or you will have to hire an experienced PPC expert who can work on your campaigns effectively.
- PPC is like a faucet: if you turn it off, it stops giving you leads. If you suddenly have to divert your PPC budget to something else, can you survive with the leads you naturally receive? SEO lasts a long time and while it has never really been done, it’s like rolling ice: it takes a while to progress and can slow down at times, but once it goes up, nothing stops it.
- “Click Fraud” is still a problem as some companies use personal clicks or damage software that mimics human clicks from various IP addresses around the world. Your competitors can quickly charge your click-through costs. Google can detect these frauds but there are ways to prevent this detection.
Mixing PPC with SEO
Most of the time, people start with PPC because it brings faster results. They miss SEO because they don’t start doing it very quickly. If you defer, it will take longer to measure. You can start with the basics. let’s take an example, having a blog is one of them. Using your site’s content marketing strategy is a great way to grow your brand and your reputation.
People tend to ignore SEO. Search engine optimization is very important for business, Small businesses and SEO enthusiasts can also miss out on a lot of themselves by never using PPC. It can be a great opportunity to sell your products through PPC.
Over time, it is true that SEO is more powerful than PPC. You can rate up to one article in hundreds if not thousands of keywords and CTRs tend to be too high. But in the short term, PPC is a great way to get start-up and sales traffic and a great way to keep your positions consistent. The longer the campaign works, the better CTRs and CPCs get points, as they will be done very well.
SEO vs PPC: Which is better for my business?
Now, which is better? Yes, it depends on your industry and budget. Ideally, both SEO and a well-structured PPC campaign often lead to good business results. You will soon start to see more clicks and earnings coming in to ensure your business makes money while you wait for your SEO efforts to pay off.
If you have a budget and need to see an immediate impact. After that participating in the PPC campaign will show you instant results. But it can also take time and trial and error to hone the changing ads without paying for the results too much.
If you have a long timeline in mind and you don’t need to see immediate results. Then SEO efforts can provide the best results and come back over time. You will not have to pay less for website traffic and lead or you have to come up with new ads to combat ad blindness.
However, a well-thought-out marketing strategy that combines these two efforts. It often leads to a very good overall result.
Conclusion
SEO and PPC are both part of Search Engine Marketing (SEM), which means you can choose to market your product or business online by paying Google or by getting your site in its SERPs.
SEO can increase the authority and value of your website and give you consistent results. While PPC can give you instant results with a highly targeted audience in a critical period of time even if your website is not built for SEO.
SEO is very expensive and gives you the highest return revenue. PPC, on the other hand, though less expensive, offers a faster appearance. It is recommended that you use your combination of both SEO and PPC according to your short-term and long-term goals, budget, and other factors.
OGEN Infosystem is one of the best Digital Marketing Company in India that provides expert SEO services and PPC services to clients across the country and creates innovative digital marketing solutions for building long-term brand awareness for the clients.
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