When marketing their business online, many people ask the question, “Which is better; SEO or PPC?” the truth is that they offer different solutions to the same fundamental problem (how to get your website found by Google visitors), and for that reason it doesn’t have to be a stark choice between one and the other. In fact, the most successful companies are increasingly using an integrated approach which utilizes both of their strengths simultaneously. This article will take a look at those strengths and reveal why these two marketing methods are best operated together rather than individually.

Advantages of SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing a website’s organic search visibility (and therefore traffic) by ranking highly for certain keywords that a search user may enter to learn more information about a particular topic. This is achieved through a number of means such as: writing optimized content, building high quality backlinks from other websites, making technical changes on your website to help Google understand it better and having an active presence on social media. SEO is the number one digital marketing choice for many companies for a number of reasons.

SEO Is Relatively Cheap

Firstly, SEO costs nothing per click (although the process to get those clicks won’t be free). This means startups and other small businesses can start to attract traffic to their website with a very small initial outlay, providing a cost-effective solution and a great return on investment (ROI).

Good SEO Work Lasts a Long Time

SEO also gathers momentum, the longer you undertake the process, the better results become. Additionally, if you have to stop your SEO efforts for any reason, your traffic does not stop, in fact it will continue to increase for a certain period of time, before declining several years later.

SEO Can See Your Website Rank for a Huge Number of Search Terms

Finally, SEO carried out correctly will see your website rank for a number of key terms, not just specific keywords targeted by an ad campaign. This is to do with the way the Google algorithm has developed over the last decade to focus on “semantic search”.  What this means in reality is that Google’s crawlers now know “WordPress Courses” means the same as “WordPress Classes” or “WordPress Training”. A well written website article could rank for 20-30 search terms, despite the fact you only optimized for one term. To advertise using PPC for 20-30 search terms would be extremely costly in comparison. So why do companies use PPC if SEO is so beneficial?

Advantages of Pay per Click

Pay per click (PPC) advertising is the process by which a company sets up a campaign to appear in Google search results for specific search terms. The advert will then generate traffic and a company is charged for each click (visitor) to its website. Whilst this method is clearly more expensive, it does come with a range of benefits that make it worth the extra investment, and can trump SEO efforts in the short term.

Laser-Focused Targeting

One key advantage that PPC offers is that you can target specific keywords that you want to appear for. This is crucial if you want to appear for so-called “commercial intent” keywords which could result in a sale. This can make PPC extremely cost beneficial. For example, you may be charged $2 a click for a certain keyword, but if you manage to sell a product of $100 for every 20 clicks, you would end your PPC campaign with a healthy profit.

PPC Adverts Appear Top of the Search Results

Of course many companies opt for PPC for both search and brand visibility. Even if a searcher doesn’t click on your result initially they will know that your company is associated with the specific search term. If you are selling a product you can even have a picture of your product with the price and a link to go straight to the checkout at the top of the search results. Something that is impossible to achieve using only SEO. If you aren’t selling a physical item, you have the chance to write key information within your advert such as email or telephone numbers. This greatly increases the chance of someone reaching out, particularly if they want the answer to a query fast.

PPC Can Actually Improve Your Rankings

Advertising campaigns can also help to improve your rankings. Google monitors the performance of your website through its analytics software, and if your website is presenting favorable results for a specific search term (for example low bounce rates), then it will feed that information back into its algorithm and improve your website’s organic rank for that same keyword. It’s also true that Google loves companies that spend money with them, so if you are spending thousands a month on paid advertising it’s likely that they are going to allow their crawlers to spend more time on your website, improving the effectiveness of your SEO efforts.

Why You Need to Focus On Both SEO and PPC