The Learning Center

PPC and SEO strategies both will drive traffic to your website. But depending on your goals, one may be a better option for your business or even a combination of the two. So which is better for you to implement? Take a look at the benefits and uses of each before you waste advertising dollars on a campaign you don’t need.

What is PPC?

PPC stands for “pay-per-click,” which means you pay for literally each click you get on the ad. These are the results that appear at the top of your page when you search for something online. PPC ads bring you paid traffic to your website by using keywords people are searching for. Before you can create a PPC campaign, a lot of research has to be done in order to figure out your audience and which keywords those people are searching for in relation to your industry.

With those keywords in mind, ads must be created around them while being catchy enough for people to click on them in their search results. Assuming lots of people will click on them, you will also need a stunning landing page prepared in order to lead them through a conversion to becoming your customer.

Benefits and Uses:

PPC ads can help put you on page one of search engines in as little as a day for several popular search terms. These campaigns are often used to advertise deals lasting a short period of time or to build brand awareness during a business’s launch while you are working on building up your organic search optimization.

Ultimately, PPC ads are best for times when you need immediate results. It’s a short-term strategy to get traffic to your website or landing page. But unlike organic SEO strategies, it will cost you. Whether that cost is worth spending or not depends on the return on investment (ROI). Let’s say your ad gets 30 clicks at $2 each. If just one of those clicks becomes a sale at $60, you come out even. As long as what you are selling gives you a high ROI, your campaign is worth keeping.

What is SEO?

SEO is a long-term strategy that will build traffic to a website for free. Instead of having to pay for site visitors, SEO will increase your visibility to search engines so you get more visitors without the cost. Plus, it makes your website look valuable to search engines. The “problem”: it takes time to build up in order to be effective. You won’t rank on page one overnight, but SEO is cheaper and more beneficial in the long-term.

Benefits and Uses:

Optimizing your site for search engines is best for businesses who intend to rank for keywords that will stay consistent. For instance, if you will always want to rank for a particular service or product you have, SEO will be more beneficial to you than having to always pay for PPC ads to drive leads to your site. Also, organic results are more likely to get clicked on than PPC ad results. People typically know the difference between the two and will trust the regular search results over the paid results.

PPC vs SEO

When you are deciding between PPC vs SEO to generate traffic to your business, you have to think in the long-term and short-term results. PPC is going to give you results fast, but you have to keep paying for it. SEO takes some time, but it is more trustworthy in the eyes of the consumer and will benefit you long-term. So if you are trying to rank for one service or deal short-term, PPC is the way to go. However, if you are looking for a more substantial way to build traffic, choose the SEO route. And while you are waiting on your SEO efforts to kick in and start getting results, you can go the PPC route to quickly appear in search engines in ad form.