Are you stuck in the continuous cycle of SEO vs. PPC debate? You aren’t alone. Marketing experts for global brands constantly wrestle with finding the perfect synergy between their SEO and PPC strategy to deliver the best marketing ROI.
Your brand already leverages search engine optimization (SEO) and spends significantly on pay-per-click advertising (PPC). You like what SEO delivers for your brand, as you can capitalize on organic search cost-effectively. On the other hand, you like that PPC produces returns as soon as you deploy ads.
You know that both marketing strategies generate results. But do you know your specific ROI from each vehicle? More importantly, do you know how to combine them to maximize revenue for your brand?
Pay-per-click advertisements and organic search engine optimization listings are used in online marketing strategies to generate site traffic and revenues. PPC ads appear on websites and any search engine result pages. With SEO, website owners don’t pay for advertising. Instead, they use different tools and techniques to optimize their sites so that their listings appear organically on the first page of search engine results.
PPC Ad Basics
An advertiser pays a publisher or affiliated partner whenever an Internet user clicks the advertiser’s PPC ad on the publisher’s site. As a business owner, you might arrange for other businesses to post PPC ads on your site or pay to place PPC ads on other websites to drive traffic back to your business homepage or e-commerce store. Pay-per-click ads that appear on search engine result pages are also known as sponsored ads. When an Internet user searches for a specific keyword or phrase, an advertiser’s relevant paid PPC ad appears with the search results.
SEO Basics
If you’re like many Internet searchers, you probably don’t often go past the first page of results. For this reason, it’s critical to have your website’s listing appear on that page. Yet, search engine algorithms rank websites based on a combination of factors, such as keywords, tags, and site content relevance and quality. With SEO, you set up your site in a way that naturally convinces the algorithms that your listing is worthy of first-page ranking. For example, you might analyze targeted search tendencies and use the most relevant, commonly-searched keywords in your website content or partner with other sites to share links.
Organic Traffic vs. Paid Search Advertising
1. Position in Search Results
Where exactly your ad will appear depends on several factors (i.e., the keywords you are targeting, keywords in your ad copy, keywords in your landing page, and many more). Still, it’s either on top or below the organic results.
Organic results can only appear in the middle of the page. Whether your listing will appear in the top positions or first pages depends on how optimized your website is both in terms of on-site and off-site SEO.
2. PPC and SEO Tools
The Internet is overflowing with free, low-cost, and paid high-quality tools designed to help business owners better understand this topic and succeed. For example, Google and Microsoft offer Pay Per Click and Search Engine Optimisation-related information and tools. Additionally, many websites provide individual tools for specific needs, such as keyword, tag, anchor text optimizers, duplicate content checkers, and Web traffic analyzers. For example, you can analyze keywords by word, niche, or group with tools like Wordtracker, Keyword Eye, or Wordstream’s Free Keyword Tools.
3. Page Layout Differences
On websites, pay-per-click ads appear as static or animated image-based banner ads or text links. Search engine results pages are usually labeled as advertising and appear above, below, or next to the regular search results in a shortlist that somewhat mimics the format of the standard search results listings. Sometimes Pay Per Click listings are displayed inside a box or displayed on a background that’s a different color than the rest of the page. On the other hand, organic Search Engine Optimisation listings appear at the top of the regular listings in the middle of the search results page.
4. Traffic potential
Which method can bring more traffic to your website, Search Engine Optimisation or Pay Per Click?
SEO (organic traffic) can get you more traffic than PPC, so if you can rank your website for the keywords you want, you will get much more traffic than paying for those keywords.
This is because when your website appears at the top 5 positions, you can expect to have a continuous flow of traffic 24×7 without paying anything (the actual volume of traffic depends on how popular a keyword is).
So, organic traffic is always better if you compare traffic and the cost of first page positions for SEO traffic and PPC traffic. Some studies even suggest that Pay Per Click ads often get more clicks than organic, resulting in a higher cost.
On the other hand, it is incredibly challenging to get first-page positions for a keyword. Paying for traffic may be your only option since second and third-page positions will probably bring 0 or very little traffic.
Deciding between PPC and SEO
Running PPC ads on Google can be expensive, although that’s not always the case. Still, the cost can quickly add up if you do not know how to correctly set up and optimize your Google Ads.
To be effective, running paid search advertising requires some consistent investment on your part. If you stop running paid searches, the lead generation essentially stops. If your marketer is not experienced, you risk getting into bidding wars with other advertisers, which would drive up the costs for specific keywords. Competitors can copy your PPC ads if they notice that you are taking a chunk out of their traffic. While imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, it can also be detrimental to your paid search campaign results.
Whether running PPC or just focusing on Search Engine Optimisation depends on your business strategy and the competition in the marketplace. A business with solid word-of-mouth that needs to generate a little bit of traffic could get away with just a strong SEO strategy.
On the other hand, if you have some competition in the market and you see their brand name always appearing at the top of paid search results, you could steal some of their traffic by running some of your own paid advertising.
What Do We Recommend Using? Either SEO or PPC Services or Both?
With all of that said, Voix Digital typically recommends implementing a strategy that combines both SEO and PPC to dominate search results and be seen before your competitors. We hope we’ve demystified the difference between SEO and PPC and encouraged you to put a solid digital marketing plan in place that takes advantage of all benefits. Using SEO and PPC services simultaneously is an investment that can lead to significant growth of your business online!
A professional PPC & SEO agency like Voix Digital can help you map out a strategy. If you’re already running PPC & SEO advertising, we can help you perform an audit on it and spot opportunities for improvement. We can also point out loopholes in the campaign where you’re wasting ad spend and untapped opportunities worth pursuing. When you’re ready, we’re here to help you grow your business with PPC & SEO advertising.
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