In this competitive era, where majority of businesses are investing in some or the other digital marketing tool, making your presence count turns out to be a tough challenge. Several studies reveal that over 60% users never scroll beyond the first page of search engines. This means, if potential customers are unable to find your website at higher SERPs then your business does not exist for them.
There are various online marketing techniques used to grow your business/brand, enhance visibility and maximize the chances of conversion. However, when it comes to the best, it essentially is a battle between two promising contenders- SEO and PPC. Though the goal of these two tools are similar which is to generate leads, but the results may not necessarily be the same.
So, how exactly can you determine which one would be ideal for your business? Well, for that let’s understand them a little better.
Search Engine Optimization- When Does it Matter?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is based on a set of practices meant to improve the ranking of your website. These practices include emphasizing on keyword search for unlocking ranking possibilities, updating the structure and speed of site, incorporating content that aligns with topics and keywords and building quality links to the site to showcase the audience that your business is 100% trustworthy.
Considering this, there are certain advantages that SEO features over PPC and these are explained below:
- SEO is affordable in comparison to PPC: Free traffic is a massive benefit for small and young companies that work on limited budget. To achieve this, there cannot be a better option than SEO. Because traffic driven by organic search is free, on the contrary for PPC businesses have to pay per click.
- SEO fosters long-term results: Though SEO demands time and effort, still if done right it you not only end up boosting traffic but at the same time get an opportunity to create good reputation, helping you acquire a competitive edge from the rest.
- SEO remains user-friendly: Unlike outbound marketing instrument or interruptive advertisements, SEO is an easy and effective inbound method of marketing. The rule is simple: get the highest rank on Google’s or other prominent search engine by adhering to their algorithms.
Pay Per Click – When Does it Matter?
Pay Per Click (PPC) is another popular marketing method that lets you advertise your business on the SERPs. The concept here is that your ads would appear in the sponsored column when specific queries or related keywords are typed in the search engine. This definitely does not come for free, so it is a good choice compared to SEO?
Well, there are certain situations when the use of PPC becomes inevitable for any business and these include:
- PPC for laser targeted marketing: Compared to SEO, PPC narrows the prospective customers based on multiple data. There are several PPC platforms out there too, such as social media channels where you get to promote your service or product to specific gender, age range, education level and income bracket too.
- PPC when website lacks SEO: The essence of SEO lies in content of the website. This remains to be an important way of keeping the sites relevant (according to search engine algorithms) and reminding search engine to maintain or increase the rank of the site. There are cases when business sites may not be designed for such practices and this is where PPC turns out to be a lifesaver.
- PPC for time-sensitive promotion: Services, products or important events that have a date of expiration need to be promoted efficiently and for this the long gestation period of SEO may not deliver expected results. PPC indeed is a perfect match for time-sensitive promotion!
By this you must have realized that businesses do need SEO and PPC at some point or the other. Hence, instead of thinking which one would do more good than the other; have a collective approach to both the tools for creating a strong and impactful marketing strategy.