Posted by Cameron Francis
In the recent world tow of the most known strategies of internet marketing are Search Engine Optimisation and Pay Per Click. Often the most clients are asking what they invest in, SEO or PPC advertising? Every individual is after the aim of driving potential traffic to the website. For this, you need to be highly visible to the targeted audience as to make them aware what you are selling. Visibility can be achieved by two means, SEO or PPC.
SEO- Search Engine Optimisation
Whenever any visitor search for a particular term in search engines the results are shown as the web links on the top pages with maximum traffic. This traffic is attained by implementing proper Search Engine Optimisation steps which makes the page highly visible among the targeted audience. For any website to be displayed on the top page of any search engine, proper SEO of the website need to be performed.
PPC – Pay Per Click
Pay per click is an efficient way to instantly generate traffic to your website. PPC can even be effective for websites which have shopping cart. Pay per click stands for paid advertisement for an example, if you want to advertise for a particular keyword you need to pay for its advertisement. The moment anyone clicks on your advertisement, Google will charge you an amount.
Pros & Cons of SEO and PPC
If you have small budget for your internet marketing then you need to decide whether to go for SEO or PPC . Both these strategies have advantages as well as disadvantages.
Pros of SEO
Well qualified leads: Drive potential customers to your website who are seeking for products or services that you are offering.
24/7 Marketing: People can locate your website online at any point of time that is 365 days.
Enhance traffic without budget: With PPC you need to have budget to drive traffic whereas in case of SEO only a specific budget is required initially later it keeps on adding more traffic regularly.
Cons
Long time to get results: Since Search Engine Optimisation last for longer compared to PPC thus it also takes longer time to show results.
Large Upfront Investment: With a shoestring budget one can go with PPC whereas for SEO you need higher budget for entry.
No Guarantee: It is because you are not targeting any paid advertisement so it is difficult to know how many clicks or impressions you will receive.
Pros of PPC
Immediate Traffic: As you are buying advertisement so within few minutes of activating your account you can view traffic.
Affordable: You can set your budget according to you to fit your sales goals.
Track results: Through online advertisement you can conveniently track your success and make out the keywords that are frequently searched by people.
Cons
Short term: This advertisement is for short term as paying for each click can be expensive if stretched for long.
Click Fraud: It is known that search engines also purchase traffic from different sources so it is heard that many cases of “Click Fraud” happens. This in turn means you pay for a robot which clicks on your ad whereas it shows real traffic.
There are some situations where one is preferred over another. For instance if you are looking for long term traffic, then it’s better to go for SEO instead of PPC. This is because PPC drives traffic till you have paid ads where as in SEO one time investment gains you traffic for long term. Whereas if you are willing to get instant traffic than going for PPC is better rather than SEO. With PPC you can see immediate traffic once your account is activated but SEO needs rigorous work for long term to drive traffic.
Now you need to decide what is best for you and everything depends mainly on the budget that you are willing to spend. If you have small budget and want long term result go for SEO but if you can manage heavy amount for ads you can go for PPC. You can hire expert SEM Consultants to manage your campaign effectively.
