SEO and PPC are search engine marketing techniques that are used to drive targeted traffic to your website. PPC, or Pay Per Click, ads are a way of buying visitors to your website by bidding on advertisement placements among the search engine results for specific keywords. Search engine optimization, or SEO, is a natural way of achieving top search engine placement by creating a keyword rich website with a strong linking structure. But which method is best for your company?
While both PPC and SEO marketing tactics have advantages, natural search engine optimization tends to have a higher return on investment (ROI) over time. In fact, a JupiterResearch study found that companies who outsource both their SEO and PPC campaigns show a significantly higher ROI with natural search engine optimization. Users tend to trust natural search engine results to be relevant to the information they are seeking, and are more likely to click on a natural SEO result.
PPC has a better conversion rate. It's true that PPC converts slightly higher than SEO in a keyword-to-keyword comparison. But 88% of the traffic comes from SEO and 12% from PPC.
• PPC is easier to customize. Search engines have more controls on what can and can't be included in a paid search ad. Best practices aside, an SEO can make a title tag say whatever they want.
• PPC is easier. PPC is easier to set up in the short-term. But it's just as easy for your competitors, eliminating the competitive advantage.
So SEO offers more traffic, fewer limitations and higher barriers to entry. But PPC does have some legitimate advantages:
• PPC can be updated immediately. With PPC, a marketer can quickly change a campaign's keywords and where they point, often within minutes. Changing SEO keywords, which are woven into titles and copy and anchor text, among other places, takes much longer. Never mind that search engine spiders then have to crawl the updated site.
• PPC will hold its place on SERPs. With the incorporation of real-time search, natural search results get pushed down the SERP. Real-time results are positioned front and center. But paid search ads make search engines too much money to be displaced.