SEO and PPC: How to Separate One from the Other
If you want to increase revenue in today’s digital world, you must have a well-designed website for your business.
But, you have to drive quality, targeted traffic to it.Pay per click advertising
You have two main options when it comes to getting traffic to your website: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising.
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What’s the Difference between SEO and PPC?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to optimizing your website and its content to improve its ranking on the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs), which is often referred to as ‘organic’ search results.
Pay per click advertising promotes your website and/or content using the paid options of your preferred advertising platform.
Bing, Google, Facebook, and Amazon are some of the most popular platforms for running PPC marketing campaigns.
The goal with PPC is always to get your ad to the coveted top spot of the SERPs or as close to the top spot as possible.
Optimized, ‘organic’ content can also be featured close to the top of the SERPs, but it almost always appears below the paid content.
What Are the Pros and Cons of SEO?
The Pros of SEO
Her’s what happens if you run an effective SEO marketing campaign:
High-Quality Traffic
If done right, SEO can drive relevant, targeted, and high-quality traffic to your website.
It can be an excellent way to capture more potential customers looking for what you have to offer.
‘Organic’ SEO traffic is some of the most highly converting traffic available.
Credibility and Trust
Internet users often skip over ads due to credibility issues.
If your website appears in the top search engine listings, you will have a great deal of perceived trust with potential buyers.
They will be more likely to click through to your website.
Cost
The great thing about SEO is that you don’t even have to spend any money to adopt the best practices.
For the best results, it can be a good idea to hire a professional.
Whether you do it yourself or hire an SEO specialist to do it, SEO is still an effective way to get targeted traffic to your website.
Speaking of doing it on your own, check out this DIY SEO to get your started.
Competitive Advantage
Running a successful SEO campaign is not easy, but once you are at the top it’s surprisingly easy to stay there.
Competitors cannot simply buy their way into the top spots like with PPC.
Lasting Results
Unlike PPC that stops immediately when you stop paying for the clicks, SEO traffic can keep trickling in forever with a minimal investment.
This can be a great thing during the slow time of the year when the marketing budget is limited.
The Cons of SEO
SEO might have so many positive aspects, but it still has its drawbacks, which include:
It’s a Slow Progress
One of the biggest drawbacks of SEO is the fact that it is long-term in nature.
Building a quality and consistent stream of organic traffic can take a long time, sometimes even years, depending on who you are competing against.
Resource Intensive
SEO involves so many different moving parts, that it’s virtually impossible to do everything yourself.
You need to have the right team to get everything done properly and on time.
Unfortunately, having a team takes time and resources to build up.
What Are the Pros and Cons of SEO?
The Pros of PPC
Guaranteed Position
If you are willing to pay for it, you are always guaranteed to have a top position in the SERPS.
Your ads might not receive any clicks, but a PPC campaign is still better than an SEO campaign that fails to make it to the first page.
Here are some examples of PPC campaigns.
Customizable Message
SEO is all about optimizing content for keywords and keeping conversions as a second priority.
But with PPC, you can build a landing page designed to increase conversions. You never have to worry about optimization as is the case with SEO.
Targeting
Targeting functionality with PPC is far superior to that of SEO.
Once you have tested and found the keywords that deliver the best ROI, you can scale your campaigns to target.
But organic traffic tends to be much less targeted in this regard.
Speed
SEO can take several months to get going, but PPC campaigns can start generating leads and/or sales almost immediately.
If you want to get results quickly, using PPC is your best result.
The great thing about being able to generate results is that you can also make adjustments quickly such as cutting out the landing pages and keywords that don’t convert well.
The Cons of PPC
Costly
The ROI that SEO can provide is undeniable.
While PPC is capable of delivering an excellent ROI if done right, it still costs more. And it can pile up over time.
You also have to consider bidding wars that can make PPC campaigns quite expensive.
Constant Monitoring
If you want your PPC campaigns to be successful, you have to watch them constantly to avoid losing money.
Bids, quality scores, Click-Through Rates (CTR), and positions are all important to get a decent ROI from your campaigns.
Little to No Competitive Advantage
SEO has a great competitive advantage since success isn’t easy to replicate.
When it comes to PPC, things are very different.
PPC campaigns are relatively easy to replicate.
Just about any competitor with the know-how can copy your best performing ads and landing pages and you can do nothing about it.
Improve Your Business with SEO and PPC
SEO and PPC are both effective strategies for marketing your products and services.
SEO has a slight edge when it comes to effectiveness, but an integrated strategy that involves both SEO and PPC is the ideal approach.
Results are enhanced in each channel if you use both organic and paid marketing methods.
It might not be ideal for all businesses, but a holistic marketing strategy that involves both SEO and PPC as opposed to one in isolation is ideal.
If you are a business based in the Big Easy and would like to put in place and SEO , PPC, or other aspects of digital marketing, you should consider reaching out to Infintech Designs today!
We’re an SEO company in New Orleans also offer web design and development, lead generation, SEO audit, and online reputation management.
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