SEO VS PPC – Which Is Best For Your Business?

Hi guys, a while ago I wrote a post on CTR and CRO and what would be most beneficial to your business. Today, we are going to have another marketing head to head with SEO vs PPC, and which one do you need?

First of all, let’s talk about the difference between the two, and what they are.

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) – long story short, SEO is the process of getting your website ranking higher than your competitors in the search engine search results. Of course SEO can be explained in many wonderful ways, as a service to get you ranking higher, increase traffic, decrease bounce rate, increase sales and much more. SEO isn’t just purely made up of off site techniques, every website this day and age should be made with SEO in mind.

PPC (Pay Per Click) – also known as Pay Per Click. PPC is a fast way of getting your website seen in the SERPs, as it will come up in the Ads section of Google. However, depending on the keyword/industry you’re targeting it could get expensive before you even get your ad on the first page.

With SEO you generally pay an SEO agency every month for them to carry out SEO on your website. The cost can vary depending on company, and how many hours you want the SEO agency to spend on your website. With SEO you will be getting much more than just good rankings, any SEO agency worth their salt will always be keeping up with the latest trends in your industry, make sure your website is being marketed to the right audience, protected from Google penalties, and much much more.

Alternatively, if you don’t wish to pay for an SEO agency to market your website, you can pay for PPC advertising with Google Adwords. This service as mentioned above, will allow your website to been seen generally straight away by your target audience, as long as you are prepared to pay for the traffic. WIth Adwords you only pay for traffic when they click on your Ad. You are able to set a daily limit if you want, but Google can charge you your daily limit plus 20% if they feel like it.

Another thing to consider is, if you are going to pay for just PPC, you better make sure your website is ready for the traffic. Your website must be able to convert the traffic, becuase if you don’t you will be just throwing money down the drain. There’s nothing worse than spending £100 a day on Ads and not making any money at all, you want to be at the very least, making a small profit.

Going for Google Ads will also make sure your website is seen, even if it ever gets hit by a Google penalty. Yet another reason to also employ an SEO agency, because if your site does get hit, your SEO company will be able to get you out of your pickle and reverse the penalty.

If you are going to go for PPC, make sure you start small and have highly targeted campaigns and please make sure to tie it to your Google Analytics acount, set up a goal and track the conversions.

Another matter you have to take in consideration is how competitive is your niche. You can check this by typing in your desired keyword into Google and looking at the top left of results to see how many appear. Once you have done this, go into Google Keyword Planner and enter keywords you wish to target. This will give you more in depth data of how many Avg. monthly searches your keywords get, how high the competition is and what the suggested bid is on Google Adwords.

What if you want to give your business a quick boost?

If you are after some short term rankings or increased visbility on Search Engines, then PPC could be the way to go. But, why would you want short term rankings? Maybe you have just released a new product or landing page, and you are testing it with a keyword you haven’t yet targeted and would lik to see how it performs. This will also help any SEO strategy you have running.

So, which one should you go for, SEO or PPC?

Personally, I think you should go for both, especially if you or your business is new to the web and are after sales straight away. PPC could get quick sales, while the SEO team are working away getting your website marketed to your target audience, and improving keywords. After all, the more visibilty you have on the web, the more successful you will be. Many agencies like ourselves, will be able to take care of your SEO and PPC needs if you were to go for both. I must stress though, that if you were going to go for SEO, you must be patient with your strategy, as SEO can often take month’s before you see any strong changes.