Business firms these days are consistently relying on online marketing techniques for building brand awareness, expanding their customer base and increasing their gross revenue.
A subject that has remained a hot debate topic over the recent years is the use of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) versus Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC) and which one provides better and more effective results for your business.
There’s no doubt to the fact that traffic is the lifeblood of any online business and though both SEO and PPC achieve the same end goals, they are two diverse concepts that operate on different techniques and methodologies.
To resolve the dilemma of professionals, we have brought forward this blog that will familiarize you with whether you should opt for SEO or PPC for increasing your business revenue.
SEO Vs PPC
We will first examine the major differences between SEO and PPC and the exact mechanism by which each works.
What is SEO?
SEO refers to a set of practices and techniques aimed at boosting the ranking of websites in natural/organic search results for target keywords on different search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc to get plenty of unpaid, organic traffic on websites and subsequently generate business.
What is PPC?
PPC is a means of paying for getting traffic on your websites wherein you need to pay for displaying ads in the sponsored results section of different search engines’ result pages.
Google AdWords or PPC is a form of paid advertising wherein you need to pay a specific amount whenever a user clicks on your displayed ad on different search engine result pages and gets re-directed to your website.
Pros and Cons of SEO
SEO is highly crucial for enhancing the ranking of websites since statistics reveal that 80% of the traffic that a website can get will come from the search engines. The main benefit of using SEO is its tendency to bring you better quality traffic and more trusting leads.
Pros of SEO
We will familiarize you with the circumstances when SEO will prove beneficial for your online business
When Consistent and Sustainable Results are Desired
You must rely on SEO when you desire consistent and sustainable results or traffic on your website. SEO has a long gestation period since moving to the first page of search engine results will not happen overnight and you need to put in consistent efforts to get your website ranked on the first page of search engine results.
Though it will take plenty of time to get your website top-ranked on different search engine result pages, you will enjoy sustained traffic once you get to the first page of search engines. By Putting consistent efforts to maintain and improve your results, SEO will reap long-term benefits and you will get sustained organic traffic.
When Traffic is Desired at Low-Budgets
There’s no denying the fact that SEO is neither easy nor cheap for getting traffic, it is usually more economical as compared to other marketing tactics for building brand awareness and getting relevant traffic to your website. This is because it is challenging to boost your website ranking via SEO since it will take plenty of time to get your website on the first page, however.
you will receive consistent and sustained traffic once your website gets to the first page of search engine results which makes SEO a highly cost-effective technique for getting quality traffic on your website and provides it an edge over PPC that incurs enormous expenses for getting traffic.
When you wish to Increase the Value of your Website/When you want to build Brand Credibility
Websites are virtual real estates as you need to increase the value of your website to generate leads and get business consistently. There are several factors that contribute to enhancing the credibility and value of your brand/business in the perception of the users some of which include the amount of traffic generated, page rank, search engine rankings over a span of time, link popularity, consistency of traffic generated and others.
Though time-consuming, good SEO practices serve to substantially improve your search engine rankings and your credibility in turn in the perception of the users searching for services similar to yours. This is because a business appearing on the first page of search engines will win more credibility and trust from the audience as compared to a business on successive search engine pages.
When you Desire to Build an Authority Site
SEO serves highly effective for attaining an established name in your industry and building an authority site. Once you attain an established name and become an authority site, your audience will redirect to your site for gathering information specific to your niche and your website will get an enormous amount of traffic based on URL recall alone.
Relying on SEO will help you become an established name and build an authority website by sustainably generating traffic to your website pages eventually helping you build a good reputation and making it popular enough to dominate its competitors.
Once you attain an established position in the organic search results, you will get plenty of business since your competitors cannot simply pay more to rank above you.
Cons of SEO
We will now familiarize you with the circumstances when you should not rely on SEO
Is Time-Consuming for Getting Results/Requires Patience
Increased website traffic and higher search engine rankings do not happen overnight with SEO and you need to invest tremendous efforts and time to get your website ranked on the first page of search engine results. You will need to maintain patience and wait for some time for the search engines to explore and learn about your site and gather information essential to rank your site.
This makes SEO unreliable when you desire immediate results and wish to get traffic instantly to your website.
Pros of PPC
We will first familiarize you with the circumstances when PPC will prove beneficial for your business
When You Desire Immediate Results
You must rely on PPC for getting instantaneous results since it has the potential to get an enormous amount of traffic to your website instantaneously. This is because your ads will get displayed immediately for millions of audience to see once your PPC campaign is approved and you will get a rush of visitors cascading through your website pages within minutes. PPC works miraculously well with seasonal promotions, product launches, event-focused marketing, joint venture projects and other analogous marketing campaigns, however, fails to get sustained and consistent traffic to your website. Therefore, you must use it only when you desire instant results.
When you desire to dominate search results for your keyword category
PPC allows you to advertise your business and display your ads prominently in search results for specific keyword search. This is because PPC results are displayed above the organic search results and people will be able to access your business and when they actively search for keywords related to your business.
You must use PPC if you wish to maximize clicks for keyword searches relevant to your business and want to grab a top position in the search results for specific keywords.
When You Seek Highly Targeted Traffic
PPC gives you the opportunity to customize the audience for your ads and target a specific audience based on factors such as their age range, gender, income bracket, location, etc. This feature provides PPC an edge over SEO for reaching a narrow range of audience or a specific target audience your business needs and leading them to your web pages.
Helps you analyze which Marketing Tactics are performing well
PPC allows you to generate reports and determine the tactics that are working and the ones that are not. This will help you invest your effort and budget in the campaigns that are performing well and to change or turn off campaigns that are performing poorly.
This data gives you valuable insights into user search behavior that can be utilized in organic search efforts.
Conclusion
It is hard to determine which tactic will work best for your business. A lot will depend on your business’s monthly marketing budget. It is wise to rely on SEO as your long-term marketing strategy since it helps generate better quality traffic leads, enhances your brand credibility in the eyes of the audience, provides a sustained and consistent traffic and helps you generate more business at low-budgets.
You can simply rely on SEO in case you are a small, local business with little competition while you must take up PPC in case you are competing with giants and well-established brands.
On the concluding note, it is wise to a combination of SEO and PPC in your marketing tactics to get the maximum traffic and generate the maximum revenue.
