SEO vs PPC

When it comes to successful digital marketing, SEO and PPC are extremely important tools that can help your business climb the rankings and make its way to the top of the search engines. But which is better? Could it be both? Let’s discuss the differences.

If you’ve been unsure which route to take, SEO or PPC, at Hush we can help you understand what these mean and how they can make a difference to your marketing strategy.

Whether you wish to make it to the first page on Google through a PPC (pay-per-click) campaign or opt for a more organic search engine marketing strategy, the choice is yours.

What is SEO?

SEO is search engine optimisation. This means optimising your website pages in order to get them to rank higher in search engine results.

This organic method consists of making sure search engine spiders can understand the content on your web pages so that in an ideal world, your website will rank higher than your competitors.

Google changes its algorithms from time to time and as a result, this may change your rankings. However, SEO is still all about providing a website with helpful content and explaining your business properly to visitors and search engine crawlers.

Ensuring your website is always clean and using search engine friendly content that will appeal to prospective readers is key to a good SEO strategy. Plus, acquiring inbound links from other websites can also help improve your rankings.

Advantages of SEO

• Favourably, the organic SEO approach is very cost-effective when compared to a PPC campaign. When SEO is mastered properly, it should cost considerably less than setting up and managing a PPC campaign.
• A well-optimised website may take time to build, however, it will last and keep your website in a high-ranking position long after a PPC campaign has ended.
• Even if you stepped away from your well-optimised website with good link authority for a month, it would hold its search engine position. On the other hand, PPC ad positions change according to the bidding tactics of your competitors.
• SEO helps to build credibility for your business. Many users skip ads, so if your website shows up through organic search results, it will increase credibility to the audience that is looking for the services you are providing.
• Organic SEO can also result in an improved click-through rate. Therefore, generally, you can generate more clicks from a well-placed organic listing compared to an expensive ad.

What is PPC?

Pay-Per-Click is a style of advertising that essentially buys visitors to your website. To advertise, you will pay a fee every time someone clicks on one of your ads. 

PPC allows you to get the upper hand on search engine traffic by paying or bidding for keywords related to what services you are providing or what products you are selling.

Advantages of PPC

• With PPC you are guaranteed quick results. From the moment your PPC campaign begins, you will start to see improved traffic, clicks, and conversions straight away. 
• A PPC strategy allows you to strictly target your potential customers. Target ads using search keywords, geography, and peak times can be utilised to get better results.
• With PPC, you set the budget and are fully in control of your account. You will be able to clearly see how many leads you are getting in return, which will help you estimate an accurate budget
• You don’t have to worry about a search engine’s algorithm impacting your position with PPC. Essentially, you are already bidding on the top spots, therefore your organic ranking doesn’t matter.

Which should I choose – SEO or PPC? 

The right answer really depends on you, your business, your budget, and how quickly you want to see results. 

If you are looking for immediate impact, engaging in a PPC campaign will bring the fastest results. However, it can still take some time to make the right ads convert without ending up overpaying for results. The process can be down to trial and error.

Should you have a longer timeline in mind and don’t need to see results immediately, then an SEO strategy will offer some of the best results and return. This way, you won’t have to constantly be paying for website traffic and new ads to keep attracting visitors.

The perfect digital marketing strategy combines both approaches because this will lead to the best overall outcome. Ideally, looking for ways to implement both marketing tactics to get more bang for your buck is the best route to take.

If you need help building an effective digital marketing strategy, get in touch with HushBots. We have a wealth of knowledge when it comes to SEO, PPC, generating leads, and making conversions. Get in touch with us.