SEO or PPC, which is better? To grow your business online, you may wonder whether you should invest your time and money into Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC). Both have their positives and negatives, but is one better than the other?
Let’s look at both because they are both necessary.
Is SEO Better?
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is optimizing a website to appear as high in search engine results as possible. A massive part of this process is figuring out what the search engines want and optimizing your web pages accordingly.
Pros of SEO:
- Organic traffic has staying power. Once you get your website to rank highly in the search engines, the chances are good that you’ll generate consistent traffic.
- SEO is often a less expensive option than PPC. When you compare the two traffic sources, SEO comes out the winner of the two when looking at traffic generated, as long as you’re looking at the traffic that comes once you’ve attained high rankings in the search engines.
Negatives of SEO:
- SEO takes time. It can take many months for your hard work to show any rewards. SEO may not be the best option if you don’t have the time to wait for your website and content to rank.
- You need unique and quality content. People want to read the best content available when it comes to content. This can be much work and will require research and a creative mind. If you don’t have these skills, hiring an expert will benefit you.
Is PPC Better?
PPC, or Pay-Per-Click Advertising, is a technique that allows you to advertise in search engines, bringing immediate, targeted traffic to your website.
Pros of PPC:
- Quick results. Unlike SEO, where you may have to wait months to see results, you can start getting substantial traffic to your website within a few hours using an effective PPC campaign.
- You can accurately target different demographics. When you use PPC, you will target different types of people. For example, if you want to target a woman in her 30s who lives in the UK and is interested in cooking, you can target her with your ads. SEO does not give you this option.
- You can experiment quickly and easily. With PPC, you can set up a campaign and run A/B tests to monitor what works and what doesn’t very fast. SEO is a slower process, so it will take time to conclude the success of an SEO technique.
Negatives of PPC:
- It can be expensive. If you are in a competitive niche, PPC can be costly, and your return on investment (ROI) may be low while figuring out which ads work and which don’t.
- Ads can become less effective. Using the same ads with every campaign will become stale and less effective. To combat this, mix up the copy and images and refresh the ads to keep them working long-term.
Which is Better for You?
When determining whether SEO or PPC is better for your business, the answer would be that it depends.
Both are legitimate sources of traffic.
PPC will be the better option if you want quicker results because SEO will take time. SEO will be the better option for those with a smaller budget, as paid ads can be expensive, especially if you don’t have experience. You may want to use both SEO and PPC in tandem. When using them together, you can seriously ramp up the traffic you can get to your website!!