PPC vs. SEO: Which provides more value?

While all digital marketing services have their purpose, there may be a route to take that’s more suited for your business. When it comes to PPC and SEO, more digital marketing services are strategic and possess the power to generate traffic and conversions. That said, before you decide whether one or both is more suited to your needs, you have to understand what they do and their pros and cons. 

What’s Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)?

Known most often as PPC, this digital marketing service uses targeted advertising to buy visits to your website. Business owners pay a fee every time someone clicks one of their ads—the cost varies depending on where the ad is placed (Google, Facebook, etc.) and your budgeted monthly ad spend—which is leveraged by search engine traffic or by bidding for keywords related to the products or services you’re selling. 

What are some advantages of PPC?

• This digital marketing service is known to produce quick results. Once your campaign is launched, you should see an uptick in traffic, clicks, and conversions. 
• PPC is easily controlled. Business owners set a budget with a goal of how many leads they hope to get in return. 
• You don’t need to worry about search engine algorithms when you use PPC because you aren’t trying to obtain an organic position. You bid for your spot!
• PPC allows you to easily target potential customers based on keyword searches, their geography, and even the time of day. This cannot be done with organic traffic.
• These types of campaigns allow visuals in addition to text. This can help a user to be more inclined to click on the advertisement, which increases the average click-through rate. 

What are some disadvantages of PPC? 

• It usually costs more than SEO to get good results, as some keywords have higher price points than others. 
• The research required to know which keywords to target is time-consuming, on top of managed ad spend and measuring returns.
• PPC only remains effective while you’re paying for it. Unlike SEO which continues to draw in traffic as a long-lasting method, the minute you stop your PPC campaigns to divert the budget elsewhere, potential customers won’t be able to find your site the same way. 
• Click fraud is a problem that occurs when companies use manual clicks or damaging software to simulate human clicks from various IP addresses. This will rapidly increase your cost. 

The best way to maximize and manage your PPC campaigns is to hire a specialist whose primary responsibility is to research and implement money-generating ads.

What’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

As one of the most common digital marketing services, SEO is all about optimizing your web pages to get them to rank higher in search engine results. This enables search spiders to understand your web pages and rank them above your competitors. Keep in mind that search engines like Google are consistently changing their algorithm to provide more helpful content to their visitors, which can affect your rankings if you aren’t on top of these new requirements. While cultivating inbound links from other sites dictates your “link authority” elements like blogging, social media marketing, and videos are other ways to effectively use your quality links. 

What are some advantages of SEO?

• This digital marketing service is cost-effective and is incredibly budget-friendly to set up and manage. 
• Organic SEO is completed with long-lasting intention, meaning that when it’s properly optimized with good link authority, your site can continue to rank even if you step away from it for a few weeks.
• SEO helps to build credibility and trust.

What are some disadvantages of SEO?

• When compared with PPC, SEO is a much slower process, as it can take months to start seeing results.
• SEO is ongoing. Your site will never be 100% optimized so it will require continued work to reap the rewards of higher rankings.
• SEO is very time-consuming.

The best way to maximize and manage your SEO campaigns is to hire a specialist whose primary responsibility is to research trending keywords, write authoritative copy, and gain valuable backlinks.

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to digital marketing, which is why the answer to the which provides more value depends on you. If you have the budget, a PPC campaign will offer you the fastest results. However, if a longer timeline is something you had in mind, SEO efforts achieve some of the best results and return over time. Either way, Trek Marketing can help get your digital campaigns launched! 

Which of the two digital marketing services has proven better for your business? Let us know in the comments section below.