Pros and Cons of Pay-per-click (PPC) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Optimization Pay-Per-Click Search Engine Marketing

Pros and Cons of Pay-per-click (PPC) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

April 3, 2013 by Alvin Brown 11 Comments
Written by: Alvin Brown

Are you trying to figure out what the pros and cons of SEO and PPC are?

Well, there are many businesses, small and large alike, around the world on a daily trying to figure out how to get the best bang out of the buck in both SEO and PPC.

Whether your business selects SEO or PPC will all depend upon your line of business and how your business markets and advertises to customers.

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and search engine optimization (SEO) have one thing in common: both sources are means of driving traffic to your website.

In addition, both can be used independently although there is a greater benefit to use SEO and PPC simultaneously.

If you have ample budget, you may want to consider paying for the traffic using the following PPC advertising programs

However, if you have limited budget for marketing or promoting your website online, then search engine optimization or SEO would be the better option.

SEO involves various best practices followed by expert webmasters or the points provided by top search engines like Google as policies for getting indexed.

Companies nowadays hire SEO experts to do this cumbersome job for them. Obviously they have to pay these experts for their SEO services.

But the same money can also be spent on PPC campaigns without expending much effort.

So, besides your company’s budget for advertising, what are the other parameters that make PPC or SEO a better option for your business?

What to consider when choosing Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising

First of all, you need to consider the term “cost-per-click” or CPC in your particular niche.

If you opt for PPC, you will have to pay the publishers this amount known as CPC whenever your ad is clicked.

Advertisers bid on various keyword phrases relevant to their industry or niche.

The average CPC for a popular keyword phrase runs very high, costing around $15 to $30 for a single click.

This quite a bit of money for new advertisers and for them SEO would definitely be the better and more favorable option.

What to consider when choosing Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

When considering SEO for the most competitive industries, such as software development or online shopping, you should keep in mind that it’s next to impossible to actually replace the sites on search engine results pages that have been already operating for quite some time.

Even with the most powerful and proven SEO practices, your website will merely make it to seventh or eighth page of search engine results.

So have patience and try not to fall prey to common pitfalls of SEO services.

For industries that have very high and costly SEO keyword competition, PPC would prove to be an instant results and possibly better internet marketing approach than SEO.

What to consider when choosing between the pros and cons of SEO and PPC

Some companies use a mix of both PPC and SEO campaigns to boost their website’s traffic.

One of the disadvantages of SEO is that it usually requires a lot of time to actually make a lasting mark and bring profitable results.

If you cannot wait for a year or a couple of years for your business to get noticed online, then you may wish to forego the idea of using SEO as your marketing tool.

On the other hand, PPC yields immediate traffic to your website; however, you need to spend money for this advantage and execute sound PPC principles.

SEO has another major disadvantage. Sometimes top search engines like Google update their algorithm that determine the placement of a website in search engine results and that sudden change makes a website go down in the results without knowing.

As a result, the free traffic that was previously coming because of SEO decreases to a great extent.

So, even if you think your SEO campaign has been the best, it may not guarantee a good placement in the search engines.

Since PPC is for those who are willing to spend the money required to receive instant traffic, it is also crucial to ensure that this money spent is actually bringing the results you want.

In other words, be sure your PPC campaign is managed with cost-effective keywords to increase the probability in achieving a positive ROI or return on investment.

This requires active management of PPC campaigns and definitely ample time on your hands to learn ins and outs of managing high-converting, cost-effective keywords.

If you don’t have this much time and you’re not sure how PPC campaigns work, then go for SEO.

There is no reason to waste money and time falling prey to common PPC mistakes.

Consider all these pros and cons of PPC and SEO for boosting your website’s traffic and determine which approach would be better for your business and whether you need a blend of both or just a single campaign.

Best of luck with all your internet marketing efforts!

 

Share:
Written by Alvin Brown
He's an experienced and passionate serial entrepreneur, founder and publisher of Kickstart Commerce. Alvin possesses a great love for startups dominating their market using profitable digital strategies for greater commerce.