SEO vs. PPC: Which One is Right for Your Business

Digital marketing has become one of the most vital marketing sectors that exist. With a large portion of consumers being plugged into the digital world, it only makes sense to get your content in front of them by any means necessary. Does that mean you need SEO or PPC? While it may look like a loaded question, I assure you the actuality of relevance behind both may just shock you.

There is a huge misconception surround the legitimacy of using one over the other, so we will be looking into both to uncover the real secrets that every marketer is trying to hide. In an all-inclusive extremely summed up answer, “It depends.”

Does My Marketing Depend on SEO or PPC?

I know “it depends,” may not be the answer you were looking for, but in all honesty, it really does depend. It all boils down to what your company goals are. What do you want your company to achieve? Realistically, what is it that you want to give to the consumer?

Google looks at both SEO and PPC with a different microscope, meaning that SEO is separate from PPC in the eyes of Google and each is viewed, evaluated, and ranked differently. What’s the difference between SEO and PPC and which one does your business marketing strategy need?

PPC Me Please: Paid ROI based Marketing

Any marketer will quickly jump into the many different ways to gauge a successful PPC campaign, but in the end client’s want to know one thing: “How much am I getting back?”

PPC or pay-per-click campaigns are one of the easiest ways to directly track your return on investment or ROI. Along with your ROI, other important KPIs to monitor is gross profits and Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC), these are important growth metrics to follow.

A successful PPC campaign will bring fast traffic and may or may not convert. It’s another one of those, “it depends,” moment. Your PPC is paid advertising, and the more you spend, the more traffic that will be generated, but will it be the right traffic?

There comes the point when your PPC campaign will merge and spill over into your SEO department, and that’s where things get juicy.

SEO Always on the Go: Turtle Traffic Converts

Regardless of what anyone tells you, there is no way to see instant SEO results. It’s just not possible. Strong, practical and proven SEO content strategy is something that takes weeks, months, and in some cases years to build, but why?

Search engine optimization relies on more than scoring that top position in Google’s SERPs. It goes further than writing content and applying the right tags and meta within the coding. Real SEO, is about demonstrating niche authority by expertly handling common and complex issues, problems, or concerns of industry consumers. Google is looking past the coding and into the user experience. Does your SEO strategy address the questions of your customers in a way that satisfies them wholeheartedly? If you can answer yes, then congratulation, you’re probably experiencing some pretty good SERP results.

Your search engine optimization efforts bring quality traffic, but the speeds are not instant like PPC campaign traffic. The big difference is that when you stop your SEO campaigns, you will still get traffic that trickles in, based on existing content, but when you exit a PPC campaign, your traffic will disappear. That is because there are no more ads to be clicked on to drive traffic. Can your PPC and SEO strategies work together?

PPC & SEO Work Best When Used Together

A real expert and true digital strategist knows that any successful growth campaign will be able to interchangeably implement both SEO and PPC strategies to achieve optimal results. While not every business will benefit extravagant PPC campaigns, finding a core list of long-tail phrases to drive concentrated traffic goes an incredibly long way because the users who click on those ads are in the final stages and ready to commit. If low-budget PPC works, then why do I need SEO? As mentioned earlier, the real basics behind SEO is the establishment of domain authority in a niche, but it is also used for content optimization, and there are several little tricks SEO techniques help with. For instance, the use of micro-copy for your ads can trigger additional clicks. While depending on your strategies, PPC can drive lots of traffic, but none of it may convert and do you know why?

In most cases, it’s the phrase you are targeting. It is either too broad or the consumers using these phrases are still in the beginning stages of the funnel. This raises the question of whether the quantity is better than quality. Sure, if you through enough traffic somewhere, someone will commit. On the other hand, if you use more specific phrases, the traffic that comes from these clicks will be much more likely to convert.

Whether you want to focus on fast traffic or lasting traffic, the fact of the matter remains. To determine which is best for your company, consulting a digital marketing expert will be in your best interest. Once again, it all depends on what stage of growth your company is in. At some point, they will both play a valuable role in organizational growth.