Which is better PPC or SEO in 2022?

In the previous post, I talked about Best Landing Page Blogger Template . In this blog post, I will discuss, whether a brand should go for PPC or SEO. Which is better PPC or SEO?

The key difference between SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and PPC (Pay Per Click) is that the traffic generated from SEO is free while the one generated from PPC involves cost.

Both SEO and PPC are part of Search Engine Marketing (SEM), a tool that helps in running and managing the Internet Marketing campaign.

A question that is often asked by businesses is which is better: PPC or SEO? It is not easy to answer this question, one cannot say which is better than the other.

The importance or usefulness of PPC or SEO depends on the objectives of the business, what is the situation and its position in the marketplace.

Most businesses may vouch for SEO as it gives positive results. Organic search is known to deliver more volume as compared to paid search. It is more cost-effective too.

However, new or upcoming businesses may find it difficult to work with SEO and see immediate results. Paid search when done properly can offer a fast track solution to garner more leads.

To decide which is better PPC or SEO for your business one needs to understand their prospective customers.

They need to determine whether paid search, organic search or a combination is the ideal approach for their market and business situation.

Let us look at the advantages and disadvantages of PPC and SEO and decide the best option for a business.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

SEO is the process of optimizing a website or web pages to enhance its position in search engine results. It is popularly referred to as “organic” lead generation.

Organic SEO involves ensuring that the search engine crawlers can crawl through the website and pages and understand the content and rank the page or site accordingly in the search engine results. SEO involves ensuring the website has clean codes and the content is search engine friendly.

It also includes building inbound links from other dominant sites to prove the site’s link authority and improve its ranking. Blogging, social media marketing and using videos helps in acquiring quality links. Read more about SEO hacks for 2021.

Advantages and Disadvantages of SEO

Advantages:

• Search Engine Optimization is highly cost-effective. SEO involves only the cost of setting up the SEO campaign.
• The effects of SEO are long-lasting. A well-optimized website can maintain a high position in the search results even if there is no paid campaign being run.
• The positioning attained with SEO is relatively stable while the PPC ad positions can change continuously depending on the competitors’ bidding tactics. A website that is properly optimized, having good link authority and top quality content can maintain its position even if no further actions are taken.

Disadvantages:

• It takes a long time to see the actual results of SEO. It may take months after optimizing the website to start seeing the results. PPC on the other hand will get you leads immediately.
• SEO is an ongoing process, a website can never be100% optimized. It requires constant work and updates to maintain the position.
• It is a highly time-consuming process, especially if the business has not outsourced it and working on it themselves. It is advisable to hire a professional SEO agency that can work on it continuously to ensure positive results.

PPC (Pay-Per-Click Advertising)

PPC (Pay Per Click) involves purchasing “clicks” from Google or other search engines. The business has to pay a decided amount to the search engine for every click received by its advertisement or website link. 

In return, the search engine posts their ads on top of the search results, thereby improving visibility. PPC helps to quickly leverage search engine traffic by paying for keywords related to the business.

Advantages and Disadvantages of PPC

Advantages:

• PPC gives instant results. Once the PPC campaign begins you will immediately start seeing more traffic to your website resulting in higher conversions.
• PPC is scalable and controllable, you can fix a budget for the campaign. This helps in understanding how many leads you are garnering by spending a fixed amount. This scalability helps in estimating an accurate budget for the digital marketing campaign.
• With PPC one does not have to worry about the search engine’s algorithm. Whether your content fits the bill or the website follows the requirements of the algorithm, your advertisement will be on top of the search results as you have paid for it.

Disadvantages:

• PPC is expensive. One needs to pay to earn good results and the higher you pay, the better are the results. The competition for keywords is very high, which means one has to pay a lot more if the competition is strong.
• Researching and selecting keywords for bidding is time-consuming. It takes a lot of time to manage your spending, measure the returns and smartly play the PPC campaign. You can either spend time working on the campaign or hire an experienced PPC specialist to run the PPC campaign.
• PPC is effective as long as you pay. Once you stop paying for the campaign, it will stop providing you leads. It does not provide any long term effect.

Which to choose SEO or PPC?

After going through the advantages and disadvantages of PPC and SEO, we can see that they both have their own share of pros and cons. 

Hence it is not easy to determine the right choice for your business. A well-defined digital marketing strategy and set short- and long-term goals can help in taking the PPC or SEO decision.

A local business with little competition can do well with a few leads per week by developing good visibility in the local and organic search results with the help of an organic SEO campaign.

Whereas, a new e-commerce website that is competing with the likes of Amazon and eBay is likely to see not many benefits with SEO at least in the short term. Such businesses need to opt for PPC to start generating leads from day one.

Ideally speaking the best approach is to consider both SEO and PPC. When working together SEO and PPC will be able to drive results better. 

Having an integrated search strategy including both SEO and PPC is the optimal approach. You can get improved results by utilizing both paid and organic methods.