Both SEO and PPC are forms of online marketing and both efforts have the same goal – to boost more traffic to your website and thus generate more leads. They are both quite effective indeed, and there is a number of factors to consider when deciding on which one you’ll use. Let’s first explain the difference between the two.
SEO
Search engine optimization or SEO focuses on the organic traffic and involves a range of activities such as on-site SEO and off-site SEO activities. This means that if you want to be well-ranked on SERPs, you need to optimize your website and build it to be SEO-compliant first. Here are some useful tips for on-site SEO optimization.
When this first step is completed, you can focus on optimizing your website further through the process of identifying relevant keywords and creating a great content utilizing these keywords.
SEO, as a digital marketing strategy is an ongoing process and if you have an in-house marketing person, it requires very little or no cost at all. Instead, you need to invest time in SEO efforts because it might take weeks or months to see the results.
One of our clients, ACS Installations, a company providing water-cooled air conditioning and the leading specialists in air conditioning installations, repairs and maintenance, approached us when they needed help deciding on whether they should do SEO or PPC. Given that they were willing to be patient and wanted to start smaller we suggested starting with SEO services on a monthly basis and it is incredible how they rankings improved in just 4 weeks.
PPC
Pay Per Click or PPC is an online advertising approach where you determine your budget and actually pay for the clicks that your ads receive. It is recommended to optimize your website and content in order to get better results, but even if you do not, you can still appear as one of the first few results on Google for example. You just need to pay for it.
Soo PPC or Google AdWords does sound like a more expensive option – it is recommended to have a dedicated person who will work on this (or you could hire an agency) and you need to have a budget for this. As a result, you will appear among the paid results which are displayed above the organic search results.
This online advertising strategy can show results quite quickly, especially if your budget allows and I would list this as one of its main advantages, but again – if your budget allows.
In Summary
If you are on a tight budget but do have a dedicated person who can spend time on this (long -term), I’d recommend SEO. However, if your budget allows and you are ready to spend money on the PPC budget, this approach can show great results quite fast.
Still not sure? Contact us for free initial advice. We can help like we’ve helped a number of clients.
