SEO OR PPC, What's better for your business?
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
Search Engine Optimisation or SEO is the process of optimising your website to rank higher organically in search engines. This is done by following an ever-changing set of rules and criteria to make your website appear as better quality to the algorithms which determine the ranks of websites.
So you may be asking if I can appear first without paying, SEO is perfect! … Well it’s not quite that simple. SEO takes time and one needs patience .You need to have top-notch content assets, not to forget the Technical SEO and Off-Page SEO which requires a proper Strategy aligned with the marketing goals. Unlike a PPC Campaign where you can see the results almost instantly with SEO it can take upwards of a year to see the quantified results.
However there is light at the end of the tunnel, SEO unlike any other form of Advertising including PPC, offers one major Advantage it will work for you even when you stop. SEO can give you a Strategic Advantage over your competitors. Once you have established yourself it is not easy for your competitors to buy their way in.
In a research done by BrightEdge it was found that 53.3% Traffic on web is through Organic Channels which makes SEO more alluring to grow your business. Now, let’s see how does PPC compares to SEO.
PPC
Pay-Per-click (PPC) refers to the advertising model where you pay for the clicks to your website or landing page, most typically used with Google Adwords or Bing Ads. However it is being incorporated into other platforms such as Facebook as well.
So if SEO is so great, why consider PPC? Simple. PPC is Fast, at least compared to SEO you may only need to wait a couple of hours so start seeing results. We have had clients in the past where they got queries within hours of launching the campaign. Read more about that in one of our Case Studies.
Along with the speed of PPC Campaigns, you can also target precisely the customers you want on your website. You can execute your campaign with the use of data to target keywords that align with your Brand. Good thing is you do not need to know everything about your business. A Digital Marketing Agency like ours helps you to find what do the consumers want from your business. We can always experiment and change things really quickly to something that would work!
Yes, quite frankly PPC can be expensive. But the question in your mind should not be how much money you are spending on PPC Campaign. The question that you must be asking yourself is the ROI you will get from that. We have seen small businesses that shy away from spending on marketing and are stuck and dependant on same ways of acquiring customers with no or little returns. Of course we do not recommend spending money without a Marketing Strategy and we are here to help you for that.
Which is better for your business?
SEO or PPC? You know about them enough now to make a decision right? No. We would never recommend just one strategy to any business, instead what we look for is two main requirements.
- Time Frame
- Goals
What is the goal of our customers, do they want to increase their leads? Do they want to increase revenue? Increase brand awareness? So First things first you must make sure you know what your goals are and how long do you think it’ll take to achieve them or what is your desired timeframe, are your goals short-term or long-term?
If your goals are more short-term such and you have a new innovative product where you absolutely have to get sales within the week or month, then a PPC Campaign is the way to go. However if your goals are long-term such as your building a new website and want to reach as many people for years to come. Then SEO is the way to go, this way you will have growth for a long period of time with less maintenance then a PPC Campaign.
So should you Invest in SEO or PPC?
Ultimately, it depends on business goals. It is definitely worth considering both as they can help in different ways. It’s not always SEO or PPC, our experience says both these channels can complement each other if done with a proper Marketing Strategy. For a business which wants to develop a strong Brand, we recommend a Hybrid Approach, starting with PPC and doing SEO simultaneously. In that scenario, people would get aware about the product with PPC and after successful Search engine Optimisation efforts you are bound to get good organic traffic. When your pocket allows you to do both, you should absolutely do that, even if it is a way to balance short-term and longer-term goals.
If you’re interested in this SEO and PPC and how it can help your business, I encourage you to speak to Contact Us. We are more than happy to help you with marketing your business.
