Pay-Per-Click Marketing vs Search Engine Optimization. Which one is better? A question as old as the search engines themselves.
Pour yourself a cup of coffee and hangout for a few minutes as we discuss the differences between PPC and SEO.
Wanna save yourself 5 minutes? We don't blame ya. Do them both. End of story.
They're both lovely and will both serve your lead-generation needs for years to come.
They're quite similar, and yet, quite different, but one thing is for certain. They work great in conjunction with one another, because they complement one another, like ketchup and mustard, or chocolate and bacon. (You'd be surprised how well chocolate goes with bacon, if you've never tried it...)
I can't think of very many instances where we'd adamantly suggest one, while avoiding the other. In fact, I can't think of any scenario for that at all.
We love them both, and we hope that by the end of this blog post, you will too.
Pay-per-click marketing is a form of paid digital advertising on search engines that allows advertisers to display timely, relevant ads to users looking for their products and services. Like the name suggests, you only pay when someone actually clicks on your ad.
If done right, PPC ads start to work more or less immediately.
Search engine optimization, on the other hand, is the process of altering your website's back-end data and bolstering your website's strength/reputation with the hope of garnering more impressions and clicks in the organic section of a search engine. The stuff that is shown to users for free. And when someone clicks on your website's listing here, you don't pay a dime.
Well, if one costs money and the other is free, why wouldn't I choose the free option? Well, we can answer that.
For one, unless you know what you're doing, you have to hire a professional digital marketer to do either of these for you, so it being free is unlikely, even though you're not paying by the click.
Additionally, going the PPC route allows you to get more results, faster. Think TSA PreCheck vs the regular line at the airport.
Not only is your information displayed above the organic results, allowing you to be shown before the organic folk, but pay-per-click ads tend to receive more clicks, too, because faster is better for most people, and if they can find what they're looking for sooner rather than later, many users will prefer to click on the first thing they see that's in-line with their search.
The drawback? As we mentioned, you'll pay for these clicks, by the click.
They're fast, they're easy, but they cost money.
On the other hand, if you're more farsighted than the average Joe, the SEO route is the one you'll want to pay more attention to.
SEO is like a freight train. It may take a while to get moving, but once it's up to speed, it carries quite a bit of momentum.
If you value your business's long-term health, we highly advise you make search engine optimization a part of your digital marketing portfolio, as having a website that's technically sound, will bear many bundles of fruit for you in the months and years to come, and without having to pay for each click, either!
Well Alex, SEO sounds lovely, what's the catch? Well, it's slow...like the freight train.
PPC is a bullet train. They're both trains, they're both awesome, and you really should do both. One's better at volume, and the other is better at speed. Look at PPC vs SEO like that.
SEO involves many months of researching, strategizing, competitor analysis, extensive modification to your website's metadata, the accumulation of content on your website, the building of backlinks from other websites to yours, and more.
This process doesn't happen overnight, and that's why pay-per-click advertising became the juggernaut that it did, because who would want to travel via freight train when they can zip down the tracks at 200 mph instead? But as PPC advertising becomes more saturated with each passing year, SEO on your website becomes more and more important. If you're looking for a good starting point for optimizing your website, here are 5 ways to improve your SEO.
PPC is the grocery store. SEO is a garden in your backyard, and we promise we're done with the analogies and metaphors, but what we're really trying to say is that although they work differently, and although they each have their pros and cons, they're both great. 99.99% of the time, you really should do both.
The main barrier to investing in both solutions is usually cost-related. So, if your budget is on the tighter side, look at it like this. Can you afford to go a few more months without elevated levels of traffic while your SEO efforts ramp up? Or do you need more, qualified leads, calls, and sales, like, yesterday? Your answer to the above will help guide your urgency, regarding which search engine marketing service to dabble with first. Hopefully, in due time, you explore both.
And lastly, the data you collect via PPC can be useful in your SEO, and vice versa. There are definitely some ways in which they complement one another, and this is yet another reason why, in the perfect world, we'd love to see everyone doing both pay-per-click and search engine optimization.
On our website's menu, under services, we actually have dedicated pages that elaborate on both pay-per-click marketing services as well as search engine optimization services, if you're interested in learning even more nitty gritty details about these digital marketing services.
And, as always, if you still have questions after reading this page or those pages, no worries. We're always one call or email away. Use our website's free consultation tool to book a chat with us, and we'll be happy to answer your questions. Hope this helped!
Cheers,
-AS
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