The difference between SEO and PPC is in their strategies. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving your website’s content, metadata, and more in an effort to improve your site’s ranking in search engines. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is when your business pays a fixed amount for every clickthrough your ads send to your website.
So, which one should you go with? We’ll break down the pros and cons of each below.
Pros and cons of SEO
SEO is typically a cheaper marketing strategy than PPC. According to a 2023 study by Status Labs, 93% of all user experiences online begin with a search engine. In the same article, they say over 90% of pages on the web don’t receive organic traffic from search engines. So, you can see where an SEO strategy is incredibly important.
The pros and cons here actually come down to time. The pro being that SEO continually brings in traffic over the long-term and the SERP positions you obtain will hold for a long time and can be improved with more effort.
The con here is that SEO is a slow process that can take a few months to years of work, monitoring, and tweaking.
Pros and cons of PPC
The most attractive benefit of pay-per-click advertising is that you will see results in days not months. It’s incredibly cost-effective because you can target the specific keywords, locations, and the demographics of people that your business wants.
The drawbacks are that this strategy is expensive. Google Ads’ average cost-per-click (CPC) in 2024 for ads in search engine result pages is $2.69. Amazon is almost a dollar. However, if you are in a competitive niche, those rates can skyrocket. You can bank on paying several hundred dollars per month and up per month for a PPC campaign.
The other disadvantage is that once you turn the campaign off, the traffic immediately stops.
Deciding between an SEO or PPC marketing campaign
Choosing between an SEO or PPC marketing campaign depends on your goals, the type of business you have, and the budget you have to allot toward the campaign.
Marketing Budget
A PPC campaign in the Springfield, MO area, if you want to see any real results, is going to begin somewhere in the $750+ range. More specialized niches with other competitors running a PPC campaign could get much more expensive.
An SEO campaign is going to depend on how much you’re paying hourly in-house or what your marketing agency charges, what type of content you are producing, and how optimized your site already is. The amount of effort in the beginning is higher than what it takes to maintain, however.
How quick you need results
PPC is much more effective if you need results immediately. So, if its a limited time sale or something like that you’ll probably want to go with a PPC campaign.
A little pro tip here: If you want faster results for SEO try to find keywords that aren’t as competitive and make sure that the quality of the content is so good it becomes the final click the searcher needs to make to find their answer.
Longevity of results
As we said earlier, SEO will continue to produce results long after you’ve published your content. If you crafted highly optimized content, your SERP ranking will remain there for a long time so long someone else didn’t leapfrog you with better content.
PPC requires your investment every month and when you stop paying the traffic stops as well. However, if you can fit it in your budget each month its a good investment if set up properly.
Targeting
Within a PPC campaign, you can filter down to the exact audience you are wanting to reach.
SEO is more about optimizing and creating website content to help it rank for specific keywords. Ideally, those keywords are the ones your target audience is searching for. However, it’s not quite as targeted as a PPC campaign.
How do I decide between PPC and SEO?
Now that you understand the difference between SEO and PPC, it might be becoming more clear which one you are leaning towards. However, to help boil it down to some simple questions here’s how to decide once and for all:
If you want instant traffic and have the budget, PPC is likely the best choice for you.
If you are able to wait for traffic and you want long-term credibility in your niche, SEO is more economical and likely your best choice.
Better yet, if you have the ability, you can combine the two strategies and create what is known as SERP dominance. Your page will show at the top of the results page with the PPC ads and, hopefully, your SEO content ranks along the front page somewhere giving you more real estate.
No matter which strategy you choose, feel free to give us a call and see how we might be able to aid you in your digital marketing!
