In a perfect world, your business could use every available marketing strategy, totally fund it, and spend as much time as you need optimizing it.
But in the real world, you have to pick and choose different strategies to get the results you want. If you’re like most companies, you’ve arrived at this crossroads before and asked yourself the same question:
Should I use paid search (PPC) or search engine optimization (SEO)?
Keep reading to find out what each strategy offers, and then determine whether PPC or SEO is a better choice for your website.
What’s the Difference Between PPC & SEO?
Both digital marketing strategies are focused on increasing visibility in search engines. While PPC does it with short-term ads, SEO is a long-term strategy to perform better in organic search results.
How does PPC work?
Despite the evolution of online marketing, some tactics are remarkably similar to traditional marketing. Pay-per-click ads, for instance, are designed to get an immediate response from users to drive engagement or conversions.
What’s great about paid search is the ability to see results right away. Your ad can appear in a search engine in the morning and generate hundreds of clicks by the afternoon, bringing traffic to your website.
On the other hand, you have to pay for those results. That’s because PPC works on an auction system, and the highest bid gets the best treatment in search engine results pages.
So if you take out an ad and don’t pay more than your competitors, your ad could get buried under lots of others. That’s why it’s so important to choose keywords carefully, make ads carefully, and bid effectively. It’s often best to trust a team of digital marketing professionals with this task.
How does SEO work?
Unlike PPC, which can yield results in a matter of days, SEO takes more time to show any benefit.
Every time you start a site, post new pages, or update a page, your site can go up or down in search rankings. It often takes months before you achieve the ranking you want — and even longer to see an increase in clicks and traffic.
SEO works by building out the informational content of a site to answer user questions and provide informational context on the site itself to search engines. Search engines look at the informational and thematic context of a site, links pointing back to it from other sites and elements of user experience to determine the best possible result to show users that search for a specific topic.
Because of this long time frame, SEO can be a challenging marketing tool for companies that need to see short-term results.
Then again, the benefits can last for years on end. That means every minute you invest now can pay off to the tune of hundreds or thousands of dollars over the coming years.
Plus, rather than paying for ad space, you pay for the services of an SEO specialist, which can help keep costs low.
Which is better, PPC or SEO?
PPC isn’t better than SEO, and SEO isn’t better than PPC. It’s all based on the goals you have for your company. PPC is great for short term results, at the cost of regularly paying for ad space, while SEO offers the opportunity to increase traffic and conversions in the long term, but with regular updates and a more significant time frame before those results are realized.
A mix of PPC and SEO will provide the best benefits to your marketing strategy, especially when you use them at the same time.
Should You Choose PPC or SEO?
But when you start out, you have to be more selective. Your decision to choose one or the other will depend on several factors, including:
- Budget — If you’re operating on a shoestring budget, it’s best to stick with SEO for now and add PPC later. If you have some money set aside, consider a PPC campaign.
- Time — PPC works right away, whereas SEO takes time. If you’re not dealing with a time-sensitive matter, invest in SEO and increase your ranking over weeks or months. If you want to generate leads or revenues right away, you will do better with a PPC campaign.
Despite the similarities between PPC and SEO, the two are actually complementary practices. That means they should always be implemented, right? Ideally, yes, but marketing goals and budgets may make one tactic more viable than the other. So, which one is better for your next campaign? Turn to a team of experts for a customized answer about your digital marketing strategy.
Learn more about PPC and SEO
Want to know more about PPC and SEO and how they can work together? Contact us today and we’ll even help you create a strategy for your company!
No comments yet.