SEO or PPC - Which Should You Use?

Both SEO and PPC are integral and fundamental aspects of digital marketing, as they both promote product or brand visibility through search engines. This article highlights the features of both worlds and enable you to make an informed decision for your brand.?

SEO is an Acronym for “search engine optimization.” In simple terms, it is the process of improving your site to increase its visibility when people search for products or services related to your business on Google, Bing, and other search engines. The better visibility your page has in search results, the more likely your brand is able to gather attention and attract prospective clients.

SEO is a fundamental part of digital marketing because people always conduct searches about a product or service they want to employ with the aim of finding information.

Some of the advantages of SEO are:

1. It ranks high in search results and organically builds trust with users.
2. SEO generates very good traffic and leads and will be continuous if efforts are consistent.
3. You may have to pay a considerably huge amount for an SEO campaign up front but overtime, the cost is reduced.

Some disadvantages are:

1. It takes a lot of time and effort.
2. The amount of effort demanded from an SEO campaign heavily depends on the amount of competition associated with the chosen keywords.

PPC on the other hand, is an acronym for Pay-per-Click. It is an online advertising model in which an advertiser pays a publisher every time an advertisement link is “clicked” on. Simply put, you pay for advertising if your ad is actually clicked on. It is essentially a method of 'buying' visits to your site, in addition to driving website visits organically. The pay-per-click model is offered primarily by search engines and social networks. The purpose is to generate a specific type of user action, such as registering for a service or buying a product.

Some of its advantages include:

1. Immediate traffic to your website or landing page.
2. Optimized keywords and less time and effort as spent on SEO.
3. Website appears above organic results

Some disadvantages are:

1. PPC generates lesser, more expensive traffic.
2. Many web users trained themselves to automatically ignore paid results.
3. Unlike SEO, once you stop paying for PPC, you lose your ranking.

Should you use PPC or SEO?

According to Forbes, that really depends on what your business goals are. If you are just starting out with developing a web presence, PPC may be perfect for you. It is great for a jump start, as it generates more immediate traffic. While traffic may be heavier in the beginning with PPC, it will be less consistent and of lesser quality than that of SEO towards the end.

SEO is the go-to for non-stop high quality traffic and higher conversion rates. SEO, however, is very time consuming and requires a lot of moving parts. If you do not have a lot of quality pre-existing content, SEO may not be a realistic endeavor.

Also, it is important to note that they don’t have to function in isolation. An additional option is to mix both SEO and PPC. Most campaigns will need a perfect blend of the two due to the fact that PPC helps stimulate traffic while the website is still in the process of building its SEO. Once SEO begins to generate enough organic traffic on its own, a website can stop using the PPC to focus on the higher quality and earned traffic.

We are experts at executing SEO and PPC campaigns. So, if any of the above efforts seem too taxing for you, you can reach out to us to develop SEO or PPC strategies that will yield the results that your brand requires.