Just like everything else in the digital marketing arena, you hope there could have been a simpler version to decide whether you should hire SEO expert or a PPC expert. But, as both of these marketing approaches have their own significance, you need a proper approach to decide what’s right for you.
The general difference between SEO and PPC is, SEO drives its focus on getting organic traffic to your site, whereas the PPC will focus on directing traffic through paid ads.
For all the struggles that you face upon spreading the word out about your brand among the target audience, SEO and PPC have the power to help you cope up with them. Therefore, whether you hire PPC expert or SEO expert, the decision should be upon a proper analysis on the perks of them both.
Therefore, let’s answer your question through this detailed guide on SEO vs. PPC, which will enlighten you with the possible differences and individual efficacies.
What is SEO and How SEO Supports Your Business?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the approach for getting the web pages ranked higher in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). The sites and the content within get optimized with various SEO measures, making your brand’s URL end up on the top positions over the result pages of various search engines, such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
The primary goal of every business adopting SEO is to work well with the search engine algorithms that keep changing over time. Your web page needs to be optimized for the algorithm to naturally crawl through it and find it relevant for individual search queries.
It helps your business in several ways, some of which include:
– Cost-Effective Way of Promoting the Brand
Compared to PPC, SEO is very cost-effective. You don’t have to pay much to hire an SEO agency and get the site optimized and maintained with respective parameters.
– SEO Outcomes are Long-Lasting
The biggest perk of investing in SEO is that the results might come slowly but will last for a very long time. And that’s not possible with PPC, as you must be consistent with paid ads to maintain the impact of them.
– Supports Long-Term ROI
SEO helps you generate high ROI in the long term, greater than almost all strategies that you implement. It is because you don’t invest great capital in implementing SEO measures. Therefore, the returns are generally higher!
SEO: Crucial Pros and Cons
Just like the positives, there are some negatives to SEO as well. So, before you hire SEO expert, let’s shed light on the pros and cons of SEO for your business:
Pros of SEO
- Helps gain the customers’ trust
- Results are measurable
- Increases the rate of targeted traffic
- Generates high click counts
- Ideal for small businesses to generate good revenue
- Long-lasting over time
- Makes valuable content available on your site
Cons of SEO
- The results are quite slow
- The competition window is very big, as you are battling to stay ahead of the entire internet
- Constant maintenance is required
- No immediate profits are witnessed
What is PPC and How PPC Supports Your Businesses?
PPC or pay-per-click is the alternative or partnered marketing strategy for businesses to gain online exposure. It means you will be liable for paying only when someone clicks on the particular PPC ad.
Here, the advertiser will be you as the business owner who is running the ad, and you will be paying the PPC agency that’s managing the ads you have published.
The money you pay will be based on two things: the competitiveness of the keyword used and the amount that other advertisers are willing to pay for the click. PPC helps your business in several ways, some of which include:
– Get Quicker Results
The biggest benefit of PPC over SEO is you get quick results! You can set up the PPC campaign today and start to generate positive results immediately. The traffic flow on your site will increase rapidly, and every person who clicks on the ad will be highly targeted.
– Highly Scalable & Controllable
You don’t have to worry about the changes in Google algorithms anymore while you are running your PPC ads. Once you have the right keyword that you know would bring quality traffic to the site, along with a creative ad, you are ready to set the campaign and scale it as per your budget. With SEO, you can’t do this!
PPC: Crucial Pros and Cons
Before you hire PPC expert, let’s have a unified look at the pros and cons of PPC for your business:
Pros of PPC
- You get better leads than SEO
- The results are measurable
- Highly customizable
- Results are experienced faster
- Chargeable for only the clicks that go through the ad link.
Cons of PPC
- All clicks don’t lead to sales
- Costs can add up very quickly
- Intense skills might be required
- Demands a lot of time to create and manage PPC campaigns
SEO vs. PPC: Which is Better for Your Business?
When decoding organic SEO vs. PPC, you must know that both of them are equally important for your business to get that widened exposure. SEO helps you get that organic reach over the internet, which will last for a very long time. If maintained well, you can make the positive SEO outcomes last for an endless period.
On the other hand, PPC is like the powerhouse to trigger impeccable traffic to your site in a quick rush. Your ads will be visible on the top of the SERPs, and ranking doesn’t come into account here. You just need to use the right keyword that is more searchable by the users, which will bring you to the top.
Thus, you will start getting more clicks, and that will boost your conversion rate as well. There are evident points of difference between SEO and PPC for sure, but there’s no choosing one over the other. But yes, depending on what you want at the moment, you can make a situational decision on either going with SEO or PPC.
Let’s try and understand some situations to give you clarity on what you should pick in certain scenarios, PPC or SEO:
- Suppose you are hosting an event anytime soon and want your audience to know about it in a short time span. In that case, you cannot rely solely on SEO, as the results would come late with it. Therefore, running PPC ads would be more sensible here to spread awareness among the audience about your event.
- Determine if you are ready to wait for the results over time. If you are willing to scale a product on a global level and have a limited budget, you must take the organic pathway to succeed with it. Running PPC ads would drain your budget to scale the product globally. This expected outreach would take time, and that’s acceptable. Therefore, SEO is the right way to approach it!
Beyond this, if you are a small company or a startup with a lowered budget for marketing, you might not want to set up paid marketing campaigns. In that case, be strong with your SEO, or hire a PPC and SEO services company that would help you get things done your way.
SEO is a universal marketing strategy to win over competitors, but certain areas where PPC campaigns would make more sense are:
- Promoting an urgent event
- Selling a unique product
- Selling downloadable content
Imagine putting your business under these three criteria and thinking if SEO can crack it within your expected time window. Probably not! So, both SEO and PPC are important for you in different scenarios; you just need the expert’s assistance to identify them. This would definitely answer your query on SEO vs. PPC: Which is better?
SEO & PPC: Mistakes to Avoid
So, as you have now decided what works well for you, PPC or SEO, it is time to be aware of the common mistakes that you should try and avoid on priority. Let’s have a look:
Mistakes to Avoid for SEO
Some of the common mistakes that you should avoid while focusing on improving the SEO of your web pages are:
- Don’t overlook the slow speed and high load time of your website.
- Attend to the bad reviews on Google or any other platforms, and try and improve the customers’ experience.
- Do not leave the Google My Business Profile verification code wrong.
- Do not lag behind in adding more location-specific web pages.
- Avoid adding duplicate content to your site with an expectation of better SEO.
- Ensure there are no broken images or missing ALT texts within your web pages.
- Don’t leave outdated or inaccurate information on the website.
- Pay emphasis on getting the site optimized for mobile devices.
- Avoid keyword stuffing.
Mistakes to Avoid for PPC
Some of the common mistakes that you should avoid while running PPC campaigns for your dedicated web pages are:
- Never approach the PPC campaigns without a proper strategy or goal in mind.
- Avoid leaving out the new ad features. Try to adopt them on priority!
- Do not overlook the intent signals.
- Don’t just run the PPC ad for a single device; instead, cater to all of them.
- Never ignore the possibility of click fraud.
- Do not serve your customers with mismatched messaging or information.
- Don’t let your campaigns go unmonitored.
- Don’t let go of the branded keywords, and bid on them to generate better PPC ads.
SEO And PPC: Questions to Ask Before Choosing an Agency
So, if you have made up your mind about implementing SEO or PPC for your branding or marketing needs, you will need the help of the best PPC and SEO services company out there. Some of the questions that you must ask the agencies to ensure you are hiring a reliable team for your marketing needs are:
- Ask the agencies if they have specialists for running paid ads who can work specifically for the business of your niche.
- Ask them about the total experience they have in the business and get an idea of the certifications they have.
- Ask them if they can help you with setting up the ad account.
- Take note of the type of PPC services they offer.
- Ask them about their approach towards implementing SEO measures onto your site and web pages.
- Ask them about how they are planning to adopt individual strategies for the brand, business, industry, or niche.
- Ask them about the time it would take for their SEO implementations to show some results.
- Get insight into what metrics they aim for to ensure the SEO for your website is a success.
SEO and PPC: How They Work Together?
Forget PPC vs SEO, instead use them together. This would enable you to get the best of both worlds. It can help your business experience outstanding perks, and experts consider it as one of the best digital marketing strategies to count on. Some of the ways they work together are:
Elevating Brand Awareness
Using SEO and PPC together can help you scale your brand’s awareness across the target audience. Improving the website traffic and position over the search engine rankings will help increase the authoritativeness of your site among the users.
Enhancing the SERP Opportunities
You get more control over the SERP occupancy of your brand’s website when you use PPC and SEO altogether. It means when you rank well on the Google SERPs and are also running a PPC ad campaign, your brand’s URLs will appear multiple times on the same results page.
The ads and the organic positioning would together help drive more traffic, sales, and conversions for your brand.
Better Keyword Coverage
With SEO alone, you might have the liberty to use a few high-frequency keywords for a short amount of time and then drop down in position for most of them in the next few days.
With PPC alone, you are mostly using one targeted keyword, which doesn’t ensure your ad would come up every time a relevant or near-match keyword is used. Therefore, implementing a dual approach would ensure you are covering more keywords at the same time, bringing in more traffic to your site.
Conclusion
So, this is a clear understanding of how PPC and SEO can both help your brand scale in terms of visibility and sales. All you have to do is find and rely on the best PPC services and SEO services agency. If you are struggling to find one, well, let’s make it easier for you!
The OnPoint Management Group offers highly experienced SEO and PPC services for businesses of all sizes. Whether you are a startup or an established business, we provide you with quality outcomes on priority!
