SEO or PPC, Which is Better For Your Business?
SEO helps your website rank higher in organic search results by improving the quality and relevance of the content on your website. This improved visibility comes without the expensive PPC click-through costs.
PPC ads are paid online ads that are laser-targeted by demographics and keywords to get in front of the right people at the right time. Typically, PPC ads appear in very prominent positions in search results and drive the majority of clicks for highly commercialized terms.
Defining SEO and PPC
SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization” and is the process of improving your website to increase its visibility in Google, Bing and other search engines. SEO helps your content rank higher in search engines and makes your audience click on and trust your content more. SEO is also more effective for local searches and can increase your online presence in the long run.
PPC (Pay Per Click) is advertising that appears on search results pages (usually in the top positions). Pay-per-click (PPC), on the other hand, is a buying strategy that requires you to spend advertising dollars to get your content in front of viewers who search for specific keywords online.
How to Make SEO and PPC Work for You
1. Create retargeting ads
Has someone visited your site without making a purchase, perhaps a pricing page or a checkout page? By retargeting ads, you can easily encourage visitors to come back and make a purchase, even after they’ve left your site.
2. Promote website content with social media ads
If you want your content to rank organically, promoting it on social media is an easy way to rank it. This type of advertising can not only help you distribute your content, but it can also help you gain important backlinks that will increase your ranking. It would also be a shame not to promote your latest blog posts, guides, reports and case studies that you spent hours creating.
3. Collect data from ads to improve your SEO strategy
PPC campaigns give you access to a lot of data, including the search volume of your keywords, the keywords your competitors are bidding on, and which CTAs have the highest conversion rates. With all this data, you can create better SEO strategies with less effort.
How SEO Supports Your Business
The above picture shows you SEO-friendly search results. Keywords play a very important role in SEO. If you want a primer on search engine optimization, read my SEO guide before continuing. Otherwise, you should have a thorough understanding of how ranking on search engine results pages can generate a lot of traffic that will grow your business.
Almost any business can benefit from the free traffic that search engines like Google send you, but that doesn’t mean SEO should be your last resort when it comes to your marketing strategy. As you will read below, SEO has many advantages, but there are also some disadvantages that you should be aware of.
Benefits of SEO
1. SEO is cheaper in the long run
SEO may cost you time and money to pay freelancers, agencies, and SEO tools, but it’s still cheaper than PPC in the long run. When you create content that ranks and drives traffic to your website, you no longer need to spend money to get your content seen by your target customers. And if these customers decide to click on your link, unlike PPC campaigns where you pay per click, there is no cost to you.
2. You can target different funnel stages with SEO
Some people just recognize your brand at the top of the funnel. And some are already at the bottom of the funnel, ready to pull out their wallets. SEO allows you to create different types of content (blog posts, guides, case studies) that specifically address each segment of your audience in your sales funnel. This makes your site more effective at driving visitors to the next step in the funnel each time they view your content.
3. Search traffic is more stable
Once you rank in Google, you can start planning and forecasting free traffic for your website as long as you continue to optimize your website. Another benefit to remember is that there is no on/off switch for SEO. With PPC marketing, if your marketing budget runs out, your website will no longer appear in search results. The best way to remember this difference is to think of it from a real estate perspective. SEO is like owning your traffic, while PPC is like renting your traffic.
How PPC Supports Your Businesses
PPC stands for Pay Per Click Marketing. This is the method of using paid advertising on search engines like Google and Bing to drive targeted traffic to your website. If you want to learn more about the basics of PPC, check out our PPC overview before reading further.
Benefits of PPC
1. PPC offers quick results
While it can take months to see results from an SEO strategy, it can only take a few hours to see results from a PPC campaign.
2. PPC ads appear above organic rankings
Running a PPC campaign for targeted keywords will help your website appear first on search engine results pages. This ranking allows viewers to focus on you first before seeing other results.
3. PPC allows you to pinpoint your target audience
When you launch a PPC campaign, you can choose who you want to target your ads to. Do you need people from a specific geographic area or a specific age group? marital status? Or interest? In this case, you should use PPC.
Conclusion
Choosing between SEO and PPC ultimately depends on your business situation. You can use both SEO and PPC to grow your business. SEO takes time, but it’s an incredibly cost-effective strategy in the long run. PPC will get you the customers you need now, even if you have to pay for the results. So, take the time to weigh the SEO and PPC to decide which one is right for you. And when possible, combine these two strategies to deliver better results for your business.