SEO and PPC — When to Choose What
Search engine optimization (SE) is completely free, but usually takes a lot of effort and discipline. Effective SEO involves leveraging keywords and a keyword strategy to push your content up the ranks of the search engine results. This is one of the most desirable outcomes, because the higher you rank on Google, the more likely to get traffic to your website.
PPC, or pay-per-click, is the paid form of search engine marketing. This entails the creation of ads directing people to your website or product on a publisher website like Facebook or Google. Essentially, you bid to have your ads appear in the “sponsored results” when someone is typing into a search engine. One thing to keep in mind is that PPC ads always appear above the one and two spots on Google.
When Should You Use SEO?
SEO and PPC are not mutually exclusive strategies. In some cases the best strategy is to combine both of these. Deciding how you balance SEO and PPC depends on what you want to achieve in your overall digital marketing strategy.
Overall, SEO aims to shoot your website to the first page of Google or Bing. That being said, here are specific situations where you may choose SEO over PPC.
You’re looking for consistent results. Every marketer knows that SEO takes time to be effective, but the payoff is also worth it, considering that 80% of traffic comes from search engines. Once you get to the first page of results, you will start getting sustained traffic.
You want to build domain authority. A website with a strong domain authority is regarded as a credible source for a particular topic. By consistently showing up at the top of the results helps your website establish its authority.
You don’t have the budget. SEO can be entirely free, so if your marketing department doesn’t have an extensive budget, optimizing for SEO is critical.
You want to improve brand awareness. As your brand stays longer visible in search engine results you start improving brand awareness, and gaining trust.
When Should You Use PPC?
Like SEO, choosing to focus on PPC campaigning depends on your digital marketing strategy. In certain situations, going for paid ads may benefit your business over putting in the time for SEO.
You seek results immediately. PPC ads start appearing at the top of search engine results immediately. PPC campaigns work great for promotions, product launches, or events.
Your target audience is highly specific. With PPC you can fully customize your targeting profile, allowing you to narrow your audience. You can target by demographics, age, income, education, location, amongst many other options. If you can accurately target your audience, you will also have a higher chance of clicks.
Your website lacks content. SEO and content are intertwined. However some companies with minimalistic sites don’t have the opportunity to leverage content to insert keywords. If you do not have a blog or similar resources useful for SEO, PPC ads are a method to get your website in front of your audience.
