SEO vs PPC
The two main areas within Search Engine Marketing are Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Pay per Click advertising (PPC, also known as Search Engine Advertising). Let’s look at the relative strengths of each, in terms of time, cost, risk, and effort.
Time
The quickest way to generate website visitors is via the use of a PPC campaign. Once a PPC campaign is running, results are immediate (although when Google and Yahoo sometimes review campaigns, it can delay publication). Once running, any changes to your campaign are also immediate, so you have very close control over all of your campaign settings and activities.
Results from an SEO project on the other hand can take much longer to bear fruit. It can take months to see meaningful results, but when achieved they are the holy grail of online marketing – free website promotion and website visitors.
Optimising your website is an ongoing exercise, requiring ongoing evaluation and adjustment. Two things will affect the results you get:
- Changes in the way search engines rank sites
- The appearance of new websites (activity by your competition)
But the majority of users (more than 75%) use the search engines’ organic search results rather than Pay per Click advertising advertisements. This means that increasing your site’s ranking in these results can generate a high volume of traffic and make the whole effort worthwhile.
Cost
SEO vs PPC – Cost and RiskWhen you start an SEO project, an upfront investment is required. But on an ongoing basis, however, the cost involved is smaller, basically just a matter of monitoring and adjusting the optimisation of your site to cater to changes in the way that search engines work. The traffic you that you derive from having your website listed in the search engines’ organic listings is essentially free.
Conversely with PPC, the setup cost for your initial campaign will be less. But there is a greater ongoing cost, as you need to pay according to the volume of ongoing traffic you derive from the campaign, as well as the continued cost of monitoring and adjusting your campaign. When compared to the cost of traditional forms of paid advertising, however, the cost of a PPC campaign is still low.
Risk
The risk involved in implementing a PPC campaign is much less than twith a SEO project because the results are predictable, the costs pre-determined and there is (currently) more limited competition.
With SEO on the other hand, the risk increases over time as the competition is much greater (anyone can participate), and the rules continually change (as search engines are continually changing their algorithms). There is no guarantee that you will achieve improvements in your ranking, nor retain any improvements achieved.
Getting your website listed in the top five is necessary to generate significant website visitors. This can be a very challenging task, especially when you a facing strong competition for search terms.
Effort
In general an SEO project requires considerably more time and effort to undertake than a PPC campaign. SEO projects require a continual cycle of optimisation, assessment of improvements and an understanding of changes in how search engines rank sites. The creation of a PPC campaign on the other hand requires much less up front effort but, to be successful, still requires almost daily attention to monitor the result and make any necessary adjustments to the campaign.
Thankfully there are many tools that can assist in reducing this effort.
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