SEO vs. PPC – which is the right one for your business?

by | Paid Ads, Search Engine Optimisation

If you’re a business owner looking to grow your business, you’ve probably heard of the SEO vs. PPC debate. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and PPC (Pay Per Click) are popular marketing strategies businesses use to drive more traffic to their website, land more sales and increase their revenue and brand awareness. While both strategies are effective, there are some major differences between them and the one you choose will depend on your individual business circumstances, strengths, and limitations. 

Read on to discover the advantages and disadvantages of each method and determine which one might work best for you.

What is an SEO strategy?

SEO (or search engine optimisation) is the process of working on your online presence, including your website, to increase your visibility in organic search results, with the aim to increase traffic to your website. It involves optimising your individual webpages to get your website ranking higher on search engines. This can include using targeted keywords, inbound links, blogging and more. The higher your position on the search page, the more traffic you can drive back to your website.

Top advantages of using SEO

  • It’s a cost-effective method with an affordable start-up expense.
  • It’s a long-lasting digital marketing strategy allowing you to sustain top positions in search engine results for a long time and continue to generate web traffic. 
  • An SEO position will generally hold for at least a little bit of time if you decide to take a short break.

Top disadvantages of using SEO

  • It can take time to see results, sometimes more than six months for highly competitive industries.
  • It’s ongoing and requires you to continue optimising and updating your website to keep you ranking highly and generating new results.
  • It’s a time-consuming method requiring significant effort to setup and maintain

Is SEO right for your business?

If you want your website to be found on search engines, SEO is a good solution for your business. Aside from website traffic, it can also help improve your online reputation, build brand awareness and also give you better return on investment if you do invest in other areas of marketing, like paid advertising.

What is a PPC strategy?

A PPC (pay-per-click) strategy is a form of advertising. It involves bidding or paying for certain keywords that relate to your product or service so that your website link appears at the top of the search engine results page when a potential customer types it in. Each time a user clicks on your ad, you pay a fee.

Top advantages of using PPC

  • You can start generating results, traffic and leads as soon as your ad goes live with the right ads and audience.
  • You have more control over a PPC strategy and its scalability, such as your ad budget.
  • You don’t have to be too concerned over Google’s changing algorithms and how drastically they can impact your results in a short period of time.

Top disadvantages of using PPC

  • It’s more costly than SEO, requiring you to invest budget to run the ads with the more budget producing better results.
  • It can be very time-consuming, carefully researching the right keywords, managing your budget, measuring your return on investment and making adjustments accordingly.
  • It only works while your ads are turned on. Once you stop your ads, your ads stop being seen.
  • Competitors can drive up your clicks with fraudulent manual clicks, which can end up costing you a fortune.

Is PPC right for your business?

PPC may be right for you if you want to see results immediately, such as with a product launch. It may also be the right strategy if you want a very targeted stream of customer traffic, if you’re promoting an event with an expiration date, or if you want to dominate the search results for your chosen keyword.

SEO vs. PPC — why not both?

SEO and PPC actually work best when used together. Some of the benefits of using SEO and PPC together include:

  • Increased trust in your brand. When potential customers see your ad, your website high in the search engine results and your Google Business Profile in the local pack of Google Maps, it helps build their trust.
  • Improved conversions. SEO focused on improving the overall user experience of your website and online presence, which funnily enough, can also improve your conversion rate of your ads due to your website visitors having an easy and good experience on your site after clicking an ad.
  • Improved return on investment. Similarly, that improved user experience and optimisation also helps you get a better paid ads score, resulting in lower cost-per-clicks and higher return on investment.
  • Improved visibility. SEO can’t put your business in ad spots and PPC can’t put your business in organic search engine results. The more places you can be seen and found, the better.

Need help with your SEO and/or PPC?

When it comes to utilising SEO and PPC separately and together, our team at Digital Surfer are the experts. We specialise in transparent, lead-generating digital marketing strategies that help deliver you the leads you need to level up your business. Contact our Australian digital marketing team to see where we can take your online marketing.

Author:

Article Written & Reviewed By:

Ryan Chilton

Ryan is a passionate and award-winning SEO & Digital Marketing Specialist here at Digital Surfer. He helps businesses to Level Up their online presence with comprehensive digital marketing strategies. Ryan is also the mastermind behind our educational training program EEATs Friday. Ryan's passion for digital marketing makes him an excellent author, sharing his knowledge and insights through both written & video content.
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