This debate has been going on for years, but yet it is still relevant.
SEO or PPC, which one is better for your company?
In other words, should you buy your way through paid ads on search engines or take weeks and months to rank organically on the interwebs?
It is even more difficult for new business owners to decide if their precious dollars should go to ad campaigns or in SEO to fuel long-term search optimization. Then there is discussion over tools, software, and automation which fuels the doubt even more.
If you are here to learn the right from the wrong, we ask you to change your perspective. Since both of these techniques are effective for businesses around the world, we will give you a list of pros and cons. Based on these facts, you can decide which strategy to begin with, and which one to store for the future.
Let’s begin!
Seo (Search Engine Optimization)
SEO is known and applied by marketers as the ‘organic’ way of generating leads online. You prepare and optimize the pages on your website to attract relevant people. You optimize so that people can find what they were looking for, and search engines find your website credible.
We can’t provide a definition, but we can channel it down to SEO being a way to put your site in good shape that attracts customers as well as search engine bots. There are various strategies that come into play in optimizing and attracting good traffic.
Pros:
- SEO is cost-effective. You can cut the costs on web design to fuel better SEO and so on. PPC may cost more after setting up
- Organic SEO is a beauty on its own. Good organic content lasts years and surpasses paid content.
- Positioning as per your chosen keywords is better, compared to PPC. A well-optimized website has its benefits and has more authority on search engines compared to PPC based sites. You have to end up optimizing anyway
Cons:
- SEO is slow, and that is what annoys many business people. It may take months for a campaign to show results whereas PPC is quick
- SEO never stops. There is no end to it where you can say that the site is 100% optimized. The good thing about this is that your site will show up in search results all the time compared to short-lived PPC campaigns
- SEO takes a lot of time, especially with A/B testing and constant tweaking. A dedicated agency providing SEO Services, will always be in action to optimize for the best
PPC (Pay-Per-Click) Advertisements
In PPC ads, you ‘buy’ link clicks from Google to bring more people to your site. PPC is the quick-fix solution to steal the most relevant traffic from a search engine result page and take them to your landing page.
Pros:
- The biggest differentiator between SEO and PPC is time. In PPC, you have no waiting, just set a campaign and go!
- The budget is scalable, and you pay as much as you want or control it down. Moreover, you do not have to tweak the site until it is fit for the search engine’s choice. PPC is pretty straightforward and quick.
- PPC does not depend on search engine algorithms like SEO. You have to pay and launch a campaign unlike in SEO where algorithms and bots mean everything.
- You don’t have a scare of Google penalties in PPC, and in SEO your site can be penalized for various reasons
Cons:
- There is no end to the money you can pay for PPC. It looks nice to get quick results, but it can also affect your wallet
- The real game in PPC is keywords. Researching those keywords is essential and outbidding competitors is also very time-consuming. You may have to hire a PPC specialist who can deal with this as a breeze
- PPC is short-lived, unlike SEO. Once you turn it off, the leads are gone. No one remembers your site, compared to SEO where good content always lives on.
- Competitors may unleash an attack on you where click fraud or constant clicks can run out your budget. SEO is immune to this problem
Making your website visible
If you run a small or medium-sized business, your preference should be to target people living near your location. The difference between SEO and PPC hugely affects local search as well. If you are running PPC ads, you can use location to your favor by optimizing for location-based keywords. Targeting location-based keywords or a geo filter will help you get better leads.
In the case of SEO, it is a little tricky. Have you ever searched for ‘restaurants near me’ or ‘pizza places near me’ on Google? Most of these searches take you to the map feature. In order to appear on that map feature, you have to ensure that main details of your business are entered correctly. Having a solid Google My Business profile also helps. These things take time, and Google verifies every bit of information to make it appear on those map-based search results.
Moreover, Google now prefers mobile-optimized sites because customers use their mobile to search and visit sites. All of these things need to be in place for SEO to take charge and bring you leads. In the case of PPC, the ad campaigns only need to be kicked off.
So which one is better? SEO or PPC?
Well, the answer depends on your company, budget, and timing. In an ideal situation, a well-optimized SEO campaign and PPC ads are great drivers of leads. You can see more clicks and more sales through PPC and SEO can do its job in the background through optimization and guest posting, etc.
Every business is different, and the positioning of every product is also different. You are the best judge of your campaigns and needs. An SEO company can also choose for you and guide you in the right direction just like a PPC specialist will do. Make sure you are focusing on some targets to select the best strategy.
Guest article written by: 
Michelle Joe is a blogger by choice. She loves to discover the world around her. She likes to share her discoveries, experiences, and express herself through her blogs. You can find her on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook