SEO VS PPC

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Wilson Tiong is a seasoned SEO Expert based in Australia. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of ADEL SEO agency. His career stretches way back more than 10 years ago when the SEO industry is still at its infancy. His passion and continuous adaptation to the trends has helped several startups and digital marketing companies climb to the top and make their visions a reality.

What’s in the Article?

Defining SEO
What are the benefits of SEO?
What are setbacks of SEO?
What is PPC Campaign?
What are the benefits of PPC advertising?
What are the drawbacks of PPC advertising?
Which is better?
SEO VS PPC – Which gives you more traffic potential?
SEO and PPC Statistics
How to make the most of your SEO and PPC?
Which gives better conversion?
SEO or PPC – Which is better for brand awareness?
SEO or PPC – Which is easier to use?
Which gives you a higher return on investment?

What is SEO?

When it comes to digital marketing strategy, you will always hear about search engine optimisation (SEO). In a nutshell, you will aim to increase the organic traffic to your web pages and turn these visitors to customers. This also means you will strategize on how you can make your website appear on the first page of the search engine results pages (SERPS).

Both SEO and PPC campaigns are helpful for your business. Both tries to boost your organic search results in accordance with search engine algorithms. These algorithms in search engines determine if your web pages ranks higher or not.

What are the benefits of SEO?

SEO and PPC campaigns both have their benefits and setbacks. You can use any of them interchangeably through time. But having a marketing strategy is your best guide towards using SEO and PPC.

Let’s discuss the advantages of search engine optimisation for increasing organic search traffic to your site.

Affordable

In terms of cost between SEO and PPC, the former is cheaper. The cost for PPC campaigns is higher, especially when you get fewer clicks for your marketing budget for PPC marketing.

Crafting the right SEO strategy will help drive users to your website. If they like your content, they can be converted to customers. That being said, you need to make enticing contents with relevant keywords.

You can use Google Analytics for monitoring the performance of your keyword and conversion data. SEO campaign is cheaper but challenging. There are many SEO techniques you can find online. SEO strategies differ per business, so you need to plan it out.

Customized funnel stages

Using SEO, you can customize the funnel stages of your audiences. You have three main tiers – top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, and bottom of the funnel. Each visitor to your website is unique and they have different intentions.

It could be that they want to just get some information, so a blog suits well. Others have the intention to buy your product or service since they already know the importance of it.

With SEO, you can create different funnel stages for your potential customers. Choose keywords related to their intentions and pair that with the right landing page. You can use different SEO tools to know which keywords convert more users as your customers.

Offers a more stable website traffic

There is no immediate results with SEO. But long term SEO strategies generate a more stable traffic to your website pages. Paid advertising gives a boost, yet it doesn’t guarantee stable website traffic. That’s because users skip ads at some time and they find that annoying.

Stronger Brand Authority

When you appear more frequently in the search results, that portrays your credibility for that topic. Organic traffic increases when you’re seen on the first page of the search engine results pages (SERPS).

Search engines have their own algorithm to determine if you are reliable for specific topics. For instance, if your business is tailoring and you rank first on Google, that makes you the best option for that niche. If you appear on top consistently for a longer period, that means you have a strong brand authority.

When your SEO marketing is doing well, you will also rank higher in the organic listings. That is showing on the top ten search engine result pages.

What are setbacks of SEO?

There are also downsides to search engine optimisation. You need to know them to better manage your digital marketing strategies. By knowing them, you can also find ways on how to counter these drawbacks.

Changing Search Engine Algorithms

There are many search engines in the market, like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and Mozilla. Each of them has their respective algorithm that determines the credibility of websites. For instance, Google search engine algorithm can change, and when it does, it can impact your website traffic.

Organic results can dramatically change due this event. If you want to maintain your rank in the Google search results, you will have to update your SEO marketing strategy.

Regular Website Optimisation

SEO strategy is a dynamic field. If you don’t optimise your website always, search engine traffic can go down. You need to track your keywords and update them when necessary. This is to make your website always visible to search engines.

When your website is visible to search engines, it drives more traffic and your search rankings improve. If you don’t have the skills and time for digital marketing, you can hire SEO services to do this for you. They have the right technical SEO skills to help your online business stay on top against other relevant websites.

SEO results takes some time

Seeing improvements on your organic search results is not instant with SEO. PPC campaign can give you a faster result, but not a sustainable one. After putting the right keywords to your contents, it will take time to see an increase on your organic traffic.

Search keywords that are relevant to your business. Place them inside your website contents. This helps make your business become more visible to users. This is search engine optimisation in a nutshell.

SEO requires skills and training

Technical SEO is challenging. It requires analysis and planning for you to make the best keyword strategy. You also need to understand what your customers want to capture their interests.

If you own a business and you plan to do organic SEO by yourself, you will get exhausted. Technical SEO takes time to learn and master. There are too many search terms you need to find and use on your web page. You also need to optimise the landing page of some of your promotions.

What is PPC?

Pay-per-click or PPC campaign is a digital marketing strategy where you’ll pay a publisher for every click generated on your PPC ads. Google and Facebook are two of the common publisher where you will publish your PPC ads.

PPC advertising costs more than organic SEO. By paying a publisher, your paid search ads are seen by many users online. Google ads and Facebook ads are the best examples of PPC advertising.

In the debate between SEO and PPC, do you think PPC is more suitable for you? Let’s find out more about it.

What are the benefits of PPC advertising?

PPC Ads can offer faster results

Because you’re paying Google and Facebook, it won’t take months for your PPC ads to be shown on page one of the search engine results page. Your PPC ads will be shown at the top of the list on page one before the organic search results come in.

If you want a quick boost on your promotions or brand, going for a paid ad is a perfect choice. But this doesn’t guarantee higher organic results since users have the option not to click on your ad.

You can go for visual product ads for you to have a higher chance of a click-through from any users. People see your product or service for these PPC ad campaigns, which motivate users to click.

Allows you to do A/B Testing

PPC ad campaigns have a built-in split test function. This is great since you can test different variables and know which combination gives you more results. Some of the things you can modify and test in a PPC ad are the copy, creative, audience, ad placement, and landing page.

When you find the best PPC ad, that’s where you will increase your PPC marketing budget. Banner ads are also effective if you want to drive more traffic to your website. This also helps spike your website’s engagement.

Paid ads are placed on top of page one

PPC advertising is your shortcut to putting your social media ads or visual product ads on top of page one of the search engine result. It may cost high, yet it can greatly help you get a jolt on your business’s brand awareness.

You need to plan ahead on the budget and duration of your PPC advertising. While doing that, you also need to build your organic search traffic. Take note, that in digital marketing, SEO is more sustainable than PPC advertising.

You just cannot rely on your Google ads to drive traffic to your website. Organic traffic must be your sustainable source in the long run. Your paid ads will just be a short adrenaline rush for your business’s brand awareness.

What are the drawbacks of PPC advertising?

Between SEO and PPC, the latter gives you a faster result. But PPC advertising also has some disadvantages and you need to know them. Both SEO and PPC help drive traffic to your business. You just need to plan on how do you plan to use them.

Let’s know the setbacks of PPC search advertising since it can help you devise your digital marketing blueprint.

You spend more with PPC Ads

Unlike SEO, you cannot run a paid ad without paying the publisher. You pay per click generated by your paid ads. The cost of your paid search advertising can range high. It can range from one to forty dollars per click. This is just an example cost of your paid media advertising.

You can reduce the cost of your paid search marketing by having the right copy, creative, and target audience. To make that happen, use the A/B testing offered by PPC campaign.

Limited Profit Margin

Paid ads give you short wins. But the cost of acquisition is high if you get fewer customers for a specific pay per click marketing budget. You can get a quick surge in your paid search campaigns, but your profit margin will be limited unless you increase your product or service prices.

Crafting an effective SEO strategy and inbound marketing is your sustainable solution for getting a continuous flow of potential customers. If you don’t have the time and expertise, better hire SEO services.

It can become idle for some time

PPC advertising requires attention to detail, otherwise, your paid search campaign becomes stale. You need to still create stunning copies and creatives to capture the eyes of potential customers. Your PPC advertising will also be influenced by the search engines’ algorithms. If your Google ads are the same as the competitor’s, they will be skipped by your audiences.

Which is better? SEO VS PPC

There is no straightforward answer to this question since it depends on your marketing strategy. Still, we like to show you some conditions where either one of them is most suitable.

SEO is recommended to use if:

You have a low budget for advertising
You want a long term return on investment on your organic search campaigns
You want to build brand authority in search engines and Google My Business listing
You have the skills and time to optimise your web pages

PPC advertising is recommended use if:

You’re offering a time-limited or seasonal product or service
You want to direct potential customers to your sales landing page
You want fast results for your genuine product or service
You have the budget for paid search marketing

SEO VS PPC – Which gives you more traffic potential?

When you plan on your marketing strategy, you would always want to look on a long term basis. This is where SEO is more sustainable than paid search ads. True, the latter gives you a fast short-time surge in your traffic. But you need to have the budget for it since you pay per click on the ads.

Organic search is far better in building your website traffic. You need to search for the right keywords for your contents. This also promotes brand authority of your business. The more frequent your web pages are seen on search engines, the more credible it is.

To keep your web traffic going, you need to continually update your keywords and contents. There are many SEO keyword research tools available in the market like Ahrefs and SEMrush. Explore them and see which one fits your needs.

SEO and PPC Statistics

We also want to show you some important statistics about the performance of SEO and PPC in digital marketing. This gives you an idea of what the market is currently doing, and maybe if you can also apply them to your business.

Search Engine Optimisation

Around 64 percent of businesses invest in SEO services
Google handles around two trillion searches annually
Majority of websites (99%) have not reached 100 backlinks
Around 36 percent of Google searches contribute to organic traffic
Google is the most popular search engine and it contributes to 90 percent of global searches

Pay Per Click

The budget spent on paid ads grew three times from 2020 to 2021
The average highest cost for PPC in Google ads is around $18.57 per click
90 percent of Internet users display their ads on Google
The cheapest PPC is at 77 cents per click in Google ads
The average click through rate for Facebook Ads is 1.1 percent

How to make the most of your SEO and PPC?

Do you really have to choose between SEO and PPC? You can actually use both of them at the same time for your business. You just have to allocate the right budget for each marketing program. Take advantage of the strengths of each campaign in promoting your business.

Here’s how you can make the most out of these two campaigns:

Retargeting ads

There are times when your website visitor doesn’t push through in buying your product or service. No need to fret since you can still retarget them using paid ads. This entices them to complete their journey by making a purchase on your website.

You can use display network ads for retargeting audiences. You can see these banner ads on some parts of your website. This helps entices previous visitors to make a purchase on your business.

Social Media Ads for promoting your website

You can also use social media in boosting organic traffic to your web pages. Create a social post where it has a creative and a link to the landing page on your website. That way you are using social media ads in redirecting audiences to your site.

From your Meta Business Suite, you can find all those great performing social posts, and then boost them for engagement. This is a good way to filter which social media ad works best for you.

Gather data from your Paid Ads and use that for your SEO Strategy

You get tons of information from your paid ads. This includes keywords, high-converting call to action, competitor keywords, high-converting creatives, and more. Use these pieces of information in your SEO marketing in enriching your website contents.

By doing that, it will be easier for you to make an effective organic search marketing program for your business.

SEO VS PPC – Which gives better conversion?

This is a tricky question since it all depends on how good your optimisation is. If your optimisation is accurate in PPC, it can result in a higher conversion than SEO. PPC advertising lets you play with different variables and do A/B testing. This helps you choose the right combination that gives you the highest conversion.

On the other hand, organic search cannot give you a quick result since it takes time to build that website traffic. You also need to track the performance of the keywords you’re using on specific pages on your website.

If you want better results in a shorter period, PPC is most suitable. SEO is good for long term digital marketing campaigns.

SEO or PPC – Which is better for brand awareness?

Both practices help spread your brand identity in the online arena. If you go for paid ads, they will be placed on top of the first page of the search engine results page. On the other hand, you will have to wait for your SEO strategy to work and put your business on page one of Google search page results.

If you want a jolt in your brand awareness, then PPC is an ideal choice. Once you get that running, you can use the information from your paid ads and apply them to your SEO marketing. This helps you build an effective keyword research and campaign for boosting your rank in the search engine results.

SEO or PPC – Which is easier to use?

Both SEO and PPC require knowledge and experience. You would also need to use software for researching the right keywords and tracking their performance. So far, both of these methods are challenging to use, but you can learn them. The question is if you have the time to learn and apply any of them to your business.

If you want to focus on your business, you can just leave SEO or PPC to a professional. Save time and money by letting a professional handle these technical SEO and PPC campaigns.

Which gives you a higher return on investment?

Whether SEO or PPC, you will invest time and money to get results, right? If you get a higher conversion using organic search than PPC, that means SEO is better for you. But the real answer is that it depends on how effective is your digital marketing campaigns.

There are many factors to consider for your organic search and paid ads. This includes the copy, call to action, visuals, target audience, keyword research tool, and skills. You need to take time to test all these variables and determine the best combination for your business.

So far, SEO gives a higher return on investment, yet it takes time. When done properly, your PPC can give you a higher ROI for a shorter timeframe. The lower your cost for pay per click, the better it is for your business.

Final Thoughts

We hope to have given you substantial information about SEO and PPC. True, it is confusing which one works best for you, but you just have to try them. Using both SEO and PPC for your digital marketing is good. You can do some testing on how much of each type you want to implement for your marketing.

The common grounds between organic and paid search campaigns are technical knowledge and experience. You need to learn how to effectively use SEO and PPC to your advantage. If you don’t have the time to learn them, better hire a professional to do it for you. That lets you save more time and money. You can also better focus on improving the quality of your products and services.

Do you have any questions about the topic? Feel free to contact ADEL SEO today. We also offer a free consultation to help you launch an effective digital marketing for your business.