There are various digital marketing options to choose from when you’re looking to market your website or generate user traffic. PPC and SEO are among the most commonly used tools. But for beginners, it may be confused when choosing between the two options.
What Is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) covers various techniques that help to improve your website’s search engine rankings on search engines like Google or Bing. There exists an intelligent mechanism at the backend of each search engine that uses sophisticated algorithms to rank your website based on the quality and relevance of its content. Paying won’t work here. You will have to find out what the search engine algorithms value the most, and focus on your on-page and off-page optimization.
While an SEO strategy takes a considerable amount of time to improve your website’s search engine rankings, it assures you consistent traffic to the website once you start seeing results. This is called organic traffic. Even if you stop working on SEO, your website will continue to attract visitors for a considerable amount of time.
Moreover, one factor that’s highly valued by search engine algorithms is the vastness of relevant and unique content. All three aspects are important: vastness, relevance, and uniqueness.
What Is PPC?
Pay-per-click (PPC) is a technique used in Search Engine Marketing (SEM) that allows you to pay for each click that directs to your website. Google Ads is a commonly used platform for PPC besides others, such as Facebook and Twitter. Unlike SEO, PPC allows you to list ads on the search engines right away by creating paid campaigns.
PPC also comes with added advantages such as programming the search engine to display results to a highly specified target audience, as you can manipulate the location, demographics, and other characteristics of users. Plus, you can run A/B tests for quick experimentation of different ad campaigns to analyze the effectiveness of various options before running the actual campaigns.
Which One Is Right for You?
When it comes to the “SEO or PPC” debate, the one you choose depends on your needs, intentions, and the resources you have. For instance, if your website content includes subjects that people are already familiar with, SEO will be an effective and cheaper option as people will be directly searching for them. On the other hand, if your website content is rich with information that people are not likely to directly search for, such as a totally new product, SEO won’t work for you. Social Media PPC will certainly help to create awareness about your new product.
Your time requirement is another crucial factor in opting for SEO or PPC. If you have a short amount of time to obtain results, for instance, you need to market an event that will be happening in a month or two, using SEO means that the event might be over even before it starts ranking you. Hence, PPC is the right option for such cases.
However, when you use PPC, keep in mind that you’ll have to actively monitor it and keep paying to sustain the desired traffic. SEO, however, doesn’t require regular monitoring or payment.
