PPC vs. SEO: Which is Better for Your Business?

If you are asking the same question, then this is the same as asking to choose between a spoon or a fork to eat with – it totally depends on the food. 

If you have a bowl of noodles, then a fork will help you to eat with ease, but what if it is a bowl of soup? Fork becomes useless, and you will need a spoon. 

So, PPC or SEO, which of them is better? This totally depends on the situation. Let’s first understand PPC and SEO. 

What is PPC?

It is nothing but a form of business advertising in which businesses pay for each click on the ad. This means the advertisers need to pay only when someone clicks on their ad. Hence the name “Pay Per Click.” Advertisers bid on specific keywords related to their business, and their ads appear on search engine results pages (SERPs) on other websites. 

Instant Results: If you need results instantly, you can easily get them with PPC. Your ad can appear in search results and drive traffic to your website as soon as approved. 

Control Over Budget: You have complete control over your PPC advertising budget. You can set a daily or monthly budget and adjust it accordingly. 

Precise Targeting: PPC advertising allows precise targeting for your desired audience. You can choose specific keywords, locations, and times of day your ad appears. 

Measurable Results: PPC advertising provides measurable results. You can track clicks, impressions, and conversions to determine the effectiveness of your campaigns. 

What is SEO?

SEO is optimizing your website to rank your business higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). This can be done in many ways, like creating quality content by incorporating keywords into it, building backlinks, and many more. Businesses can easily drive organic traffic to their website and increase their online presence through search engine optimization. 

Long-term results: Unlike PPC advertising, which stops driving traffic once you stop paying for ads, Search engine optimization provides long-term results. Once your website ranks well in search results, it can continue to drive traffic for months or even years.

Increased Credibility: Search engine users perceive websites that rank well in organic search results as more credible. This can lead to increased trust and more clicks to your website.

Cost-effective: While SEO requires an initial investment of time and resources, it can be more cost-effective than PPC advertising in the long run.

Greater Visibility: SEO can lead to greater online visibility, as your website is more likely to appear in search results when people search for relevant keywords.

Now that you have understood PPC, SEO, and when we can use these techniques, we can come upon when we should use them.

Situations – When to Use SEO?

You should use SEO when your marketing budget is low. SEO is cheaper if we talk about the long run. 

Once your content is ranked, it automatically drives traffic to your website. You no longer need to spend the money when people click on your link as PPC. 

If you are trying to maximize your long-term returns, then it is good to use SEO.

If you want your content to reach your target audience at different stages of the sales funnel, then SEO can help you with that. 

Situations – When to Use PPC?

If you are looking for quick results, then PPC is the best option. In SEO, you have to wait until your content ranks and drives traffic to your website. But in PPC your website will be shown at the top of search results.

If you are offering a one-of-a-kind product or any time-sensitive offer, then PPC will help you, as SEO is time taking process. 

If you are trying to direct the audience to a sales page or landing page, then PPC needs to be used.

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Free Advice

If you have the capability and budget, then you can drive the audience to your website effectively by using Search Engine Optimization and Pay Per Click both at the same time. 

For all your short-term goals, you can consider PPC by targeting highly competitive keywords that cannot be targeted using SEO. SEO will help you to cover all the low competition, specific, and long tail keywords.

To get the strength of both with minimum downfalls, you have to use both of them together. But this sweet fruit needs a little pain, you must have spare time, money, and an effective strategy to use both of these.

But having money and time is not enough, you must be aware of techniques using SEO and PPC without burning your budget. Egnoto will help you to do so with a great team of experts, contact egnoto.com today!