SEO VS PPC

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions…

At some point, you will want to grow more of your business online and will have to decide if you should invest time and money into Search Engine Optimization or Pay-Per-Click Advertising — SEO vs PPC. They both have their Pros and Cons, so we will take a brief look at them.

WHAT IS SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization. It is the process in which you optimize your website to appear as high in the search engine results as possible.

A huge part of this process involves figuring out what search engines want and what your targeted audience is searching for, then optimizing your web pages accordingly.

SEO Pros

  • Organic traffic has potential staying power – after you have succeeded in getting your website to rank high in search engines, there’s a good chance that your site will generate consistent traffic.  Keep in mind though, you will still need to create relevant content around it to help hold the position.  Your competitors are also battling for the same position. 
  • SEO is normally cheaper than PPC – when comparing traffic generated by the two, SEO traffic that is already ranked in high positions usually outperforms PPC.  According to an article written on FirstPageSage, a study of companies who invested in SEO for a period of 1-3 years in comparison to those invested in PPC got 62% of search over the 21% of PPC traffic.  The remainder went to email, social media and other mediums.

SEO Cons

  • SEO takes time – it can take months to see results from SEO efforts. If you don’t have time to wait for your site and content to rank, SEO may not be your best option. It is still good practice to do SEO regardless because over time, it will be effective.
  • SEO requires unique and quality content – when it comes to content, people want to read the best that is available. Producing content can be a lot of work. It takes a creative mind and the will to research. If you do not possess these skills yourself, it will benefit you to hire an expert.

WHAT IS PPC?
PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click. It as an advertising technique that allows you to advertise in search engines, bringing immediate targeted traffic to your website.

PPC Pros

  • It can be expensive – PPC can get expensive, especially if you’re in a competitive niche. While testing your ads to see which are performing best, your return on investment (ROI) may be low.
  • Ads can become less effective– using the same ads with every campaign will result in them becoming stale and less effective. To avoid this, mix copies and images and refresh the ads to keep them working long-term.

SEO VS PPC – WHICH IS BETTER?

To conclude which is better for your business, it simply depends. They both are qualifying factors for generating traffic.

If you are looking to get targeted traffic real quick and you have the budget to put into it, then PPC will be the way to go. On the other hand, if you have a small budget and time to wait while you build on it, SEO will be your better option.

Side Note: if you have the budget, you may also want to utilize both SEO and PPC together. You can seriously ramp the amount of traffic you’re driving to your site by doing so.

Get In Touch
If you would like to discuss more about these options, you can give us a call at (843) 936-1455, or send us an email via our Contact Form.