SEO vs. PPC: What to Expect?

But suppose you are new to the industrial marketing world. In that case, it can sometimes be overwhelming when choosing the right digital strategy for your business. Your brand needs to be noticed, so how to do that?

When talking about organic SEO vs. PPC, in the text below, we will explain the main terms and facts about the search engine marketing tools and deal with the differences and similarities.

SEO vs. PPC Statistics

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

SEO is the practice that includes the implementation of the strategies and tactics to make your website rank higher in organic search results. Organic search results are listings of web pages that appear below the paid ads and closely match the search terms (keywords).

Your goal is to improve your online visibility and get on the first page of search results. The higher the rating, the higher the chances to attract more potential clients. You can improve your site’s SEO by applying different techniques that prove beneficial for your online traffic.

• Content: First, you need to make sure your website content is clear, informative, and helpful. You should improve user experience across the entire site with trustworthy-look, quality content, shorter paragraphs, and mixed sentence lengths. Include images, bullet points, sub-headers, and a lot of white space. Case studies, testimonials, portfolio entries, and regularly updated content will help you build your online credibility.
• Technical SEO: Includes technical details to ensure that a search engine can read your content and explore your website. It includes site speed, mobile-friendliness, and the hierarchy of the content.
• On-site SEO: The main areas to consider are keyword research and proper implementation in the pages. Then you have to ensure that each URL is descriptive and straightforward, together with well-crafted meta descriptions to drive more clicks.
• Off-site SEO: Link building is an essential part of building your authority. Ensure that you have content that deserves to be linked to and that your links make sense in the real world.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

PPC is another traffic-generating approach. It allows the advertisers to pay a publisher each time a potential customer clicks on their link.

The business owner will most commonly start PPC marketing on Google Ads because it gives them access to the most significant potential customer base. However, regardless of the platform, it is a pretty simple process, and it involves several steps:

1. You sign up to the advertising account (Google Ads, Bing Ads)
2. Create an ad with appropriate keywords included.
3. Set the maximum cost you are willing to pay per click.
4. Then, your ad goes to an auction with other advertisers who bid on the same keywords.
5. The auction determines the order of the ads.
6. You can start paying each time someone clicks your ad.

PPC vs. SEO

Both methods effectively drive visitors to a website. Still, you need to know their strengths and limitations to decide which one is the best option for your business.

There are two main differences between PPC and SEO. One is cost – SEO does not cost, while PPC requires a budget. And the second one is time – SEO takes time to get results, while on the other hand, PPC gives immediate results.

SEO vs. PPC: Which is Better?

There is no universal answer to this question. It depends mainly on several factors:

• Your objectives and goals
• Your industry
• Your digital marketing budget
• Your current ranking

There are some situations when it is better to use PPC, for example:

• When you need to narrow down your prospects based on some specific data. Many PPC platforms will allow you to promote age, education level, income, gender, or marital status. When in need of highly targeted traffic, PPC is the best choice.
• When your site is not optimized enough – SEO requires a regular update of the different content. It serves to remind the search engine that your site is an appropriate choice and keep it on the top. Unfortunately, not every site is optimally built so that you can generate traffic through a PPC campaign.
• Offers with an expiration date are ideal for the expedience of PPC marketing. It can deliver traffic for your time-restricted offer in a matter of minutes.
• When fast results are desirable – Your ads will be immediately visible to millions of people. It works amazingly with product launches, seasonal promotions, squeeze pages, and many others. The traffic will be almost instantaneous.

The SEO promotion methods will be better if:

• You want to build an authority site – Building up a reputation is not an easy task and requires a lot of time. An authority website is a website that members of a specific niche visit when they need certain information. The best way you dominate the market is to become popular enough using clever content. The result is sustainably generating traffic to your pages.
• You want to increase the website’s worth – Staying creative will increase the traffic consistency, amount of traffic generated, page ranking, and link popularity; all of this will make the value of your website higher.
• You want consistent results – Getting on top of the search engine results pages (SERPs) is not an easy task and requires time. It will not happen overnight, but when it eventually does, you will enjoy sustained traffic. If you keep up with your SEO campaign, you may be on top of the SERPs for an extended period and benefit from it.

Search Engine Optimization Pros

When talking about the advantages of SEO, here are some:

• First, organic SEO is very cost-effective. Although it requires a budget to optimize your website, there is no actual charge per click. It also lowers the advertising costs; when you already have a top ranking, there is no need to pay for a click.
• Builds trust, brand credibility, and awareness. When ranking 1^st, 2^nd, or 3^rd, it shows your potential customers that your brand is popular and that many users have researched you, too.
• SEO is a long-term marketing strategy – it needs a minimum of 6 months for the website to achieve optimal ranking, so it takes time to see the results. But, on the other hand, it is advantageous because you do not need to master SEO fast to see the results; you can start with a simple task like keyword research and writing your content.
• Leads to a better user experience. When you provide relevant information to your visitors, related photos, or videos to support the textual part of the site and mobile-friendly website configuration – the result is more clicks, more leads, higher conversion rates, and better brand recall.
• Encourages local users to visit the physical store. Recent studies show that 81% of shoppers conduct their research online before going to the local store.
• Attracts 10X more clicks than PPC.
• SEO positioning is relatively stable; it provides sustained and long-lasting results. Once you build a well-optimized site and maintain it, it can keep a high position in search engines for an extended period of time.

Search Engine Optimization Cons

• SEO is a slow and time-consuming process. It takes months after you optimize your site for the results to happen. In addition, your consistent effort to use the best keywords and update your site regularly will take time because search engines need to crawl, index, and rank your content.
• It requires unique content. If you are not an expert in your field, then you will need one. When it comes to sharing, consuming, and linking content, visitors will want to learn from subject matter experts.
• You can earn a penalty from Google. If you need to hire an SEO company, choose a “white hat” company, which will not break the rules and go directly against Google Terms of Service. Any unnatural backlinking techniques or too many keywords scattered through the text, and you are at risk of being blacklisted from search results due to unethical practices.
• Changing algorithms. Google is constantly changing algorithms to make sure nobody is cheating the system. But even the slightest change can drastically decrease your ranking. 75% of users see only the first page of search results, so you need to keep an eye on the latest updates on algorithms to ensure your ranking.

Google AdWords (PPC) Pros

The benefits of Pay Per Click are numerous:

• When talking about pay per click vs. SEO in terms of speed, PPC wins the battle. There is no faster way to get noticed than paid advertising, in some cases even in days.
• Target a highly specific audience. Ads can be targeted by search keywords, time of the day or the week, user’s ages, interest, and location – which means it is easy to target specific customer profiles locally and globally.
• PPC does not depend on algorithm changes – PPC advertising offers stability.
• PPC ads are easy to produce. You do not need specialist design because it is accessible for any business and simple to set up.
• Allows for retargeting. Using paid ads in combination with statistics, you will be able to retarget customers interested in your product/service but just need more time to decide. With a highly specific advertising strategy, proper feedback is available fast. Keeping your product/service in front of their mind, you increase the chances of converting.

 Google AdWords (PPC) Cons

• Cost can grow – the more you pay, the better the results. The competition for the keywords is harsh, and if the campaign is not monitored well, it can be a serious investment.
• The number of clicks is not equal to conversions – we know that you need to pay Google every time someone clicks on your ad. However, not every click ends up with sales. Once the potential customer reaches the website, the business needs to convince him or her to purchase.
• You lose visibility when you turn off ads. PPC ads stop providing you leads when you stop paying. If you have a big advertising budget, it would not be a problem. But if your budget is tight, then you will find it hard to sustain a PPC campaign.
• Many people avoid paid ads. Some people will rather visit a trustworthy website than click on a paid ad.
• “Click fraud” happens when a person or a program clicks on ads to rack up the click charges rapidly. It can be done by customers (sometimes unintentionally), publishers, or even competitors. So, you need to monitor user behavior regularly and react to any anomaly in performance data that cannot be explained.