SEO Versus PPC: Which is better for your business?
When businesses are looking to increase their digital marketing activity and online visibility, typically they are often faced with a similar dilemma.
Should they focus on search engine optimisation, SEO, or pay-per-click advertising, usually known as Google Ads?
Both of these strategies are highly effective in driving traffic, leads and enquiries but they both work in different ways.
Understanding the advantages and disadvantages of both of these channels will help you to determine which is the best strategy for your own business.
What is SEO?
SEO (search engine optimisation), is the practice of optimising your business website and its content in order to rank higher in the search engine result pages.
The end goal of SEO is to improve your website’s visibility for relevant searches and to drive more traffic to your website.
We have written various blogs on the many different aspects of SEO, these include keyword optimisation, content writing, on-page SEO, Off-page SEO and technical SEO.
Search Engine Optimisation is a fantastic medium to long-term solution for most businesses looking to increase their visibility on Google and it definitely works.
It helps to provide you with a consistent stream of traffic overtime of people who are in the market for your products or services, it is extremely cost-effective, it can help build credibility for your business in the medium to long-term search engine optimisation can be one of the best marketing channels you can utilise.
The drawbacks are that it is not an overnight solution and it can take months to see significant results. This means you need to invest now for the future and you won’t see immediate results.
There are also many constant updates to algorithms by search engines like Google meaning that you need to stay on top of the trends in order to continue to rank well for the most competitive keywords.
In contrast, pay-per-click advertising (generally known as Google Ads), allows you to pay for ad placements at the top of the search engine results pages.
You generally only pay when somebody clicks through to your website, and it allows you to bid on specific keywords relevant to your products and services.
The benefits of Google Ads are once the campaign is live, you can start generating your website virtually instantly, it also allows for precise targeting ensuring that your ads are shown at the right time and in the right location.
For example, if you are a service business in let’s say Birmingham, you may only want your ads to show within Birmingham and a 20-mile radius, this is all part of the Google Ads service and allows you to target people within the right geographic region.
By contrast, let’s imagine you are an E-commerce business selling running shoes. You may wish to display your ads across all of the UK and indeed other geographic countries again, perfectly easy to target with Google Ads.
Because it is highly targeted, it is scalable which means you can adjust and ramp up your budget as needed and it also provides a clear and measurable return on investment.
The drawbacks are that each click does cost money and depending on your industry, bids for some popular keywords are becoming more and more expensive.
There is no long-term benefit without continual investment as when your daily weekly or monthly budget runs out your traffic stops.
Now that you understand the fundamentals of both search engine optimisation and pay-per-click campaigns you can decide which is right for your business.
SEO and Google Ads work well together and many customers choose to run both of the services in tandem with each other.
A choice between SEO and PPC ultimately will be dependent on your own business goals, budget and timeline of when you were looking to generate traffic, leads are enquiries.
In many cases, the best approach is for you to run both together as Google Ads will drive the immediate traffic whilst you work on improving the SEO rankings for the medium to long term.
Both of these channels have their unique strengths and challenges and the right choice will depend on your business objectives.
To schedule a call with one of our digital marketing experts here at Altitude Internet please click below and we will be happy to schedule a 60-minute call to understand more about your business needs and to see if we can assist you.
Learn more about Google ads just here or learn more about Search Engine Optimisation just here.
