If you are looking to boost website traffic and drive more engagement, both Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) is a great way.
If you have the budget to pay for PPC campaigns to rank high on the search engine results page (SERP) then you can opt for running PPC advertisements to increase the audience reach on your website.
Alternatively, if you need to build free organic ranking on the SERP, then SEO practices will help you achieve it over a period of time if your efforts are consistent.
So, is PPC better or SEO? Well, there is no generic answer to this question, and it depends from business to business hence we have listed below answers to a few questions which will help you determine which will work better for your company;
How Large is Your Business Advertising Budget?
PPC campaigns require you to invest a significant amount of budget hence this discussion can only be put into place if you have a significant amount of money to invest. If not, then you need to stick to standard optimization tactics to generate conversions.
What is the Average CPCs of Keywords in Your Industry?
Every industry has a different Cost-Per-Click rate on an average based on the demand of the keywords. For popular phrases, the bid value will be higher, whereas it will be low for less popular keywords.
How Do the SERPs Compete for Target Keywords in Your Industry?
You need to figure out the Competition on SERP for keywords in your industry. You may have used the right keywords but still, the results page will be dominated by websites with high domain authority. To displace such sites, you will have to invest really high on the keywords to dominate the results page.
You can think of investing in PPC campaigns in case you have the budget to beat such authoritative companies. Seeking the help of a PPC management service provider is always a great way to rank the highest for a keyword as they are a team of experts who are experienced and can strategize your PPC campaigns to yield best ROI.
Is Your Product Innovative?
Organic traffic only works if your product provides a solution to the existing customer issues but if your product is innovative which people are not searching for, then a PPC campaign will help your product to reach the maximum number of the target audience and improve the chances of conversions.
Are You Launching a One-Time-Offer?
If you have just started your business or have launched an offer which is just one time and valid for a limited period, PPC campaign is the best way to reach out to the maximum target audience. Limited offers attract the audience to engage and convert as well.
Are You Looking to Achieve for Long-Term Sustainability?
Is your product or service going to be available in the market for a long time? Then you have the time to grow your site ranking slowly and in a sustainable way. For such long-term products, PPC campaigns may help for a short while but how long are you willing to invest in it? SEO needs some time to gain momentum but once it does your rankings will remain stable and sustainable. Yes, changes in the SERP algorithm may affect ranking but in general, it does not affect the site ranking much hence stick to SEO for long term conversions.
Are You Building a Brand?
If your marketing goals are to build a brand, then PPC campaigns can just connect you to people on a short term but as soon as your campaigns stop, your ranking will tank as it is paid. Building a brand would need you to make a consistent place in the market which means you need to grow your organic ranking so that your brand is visible without any paid campaigns.
Are You Building the Business Site to Sell?
If the purpose of building the business website is just to resell it when it has seen a substantial amount of success, PPC would not be the right way to go about it. The buyers would be interested to see the domain authority and PPC cannot help in growing that.
You have to go along with SEO in such a scenario to build an organic ranking of the site. Buyers do not like sites which run on PPC campaigns but the ones which give organic conversions as they need to put in lesser efforts, a site which has a good ranking on SERP will value higher when you sell it.
Hence if you are into the business of flipping websites, then focus on SEO.
Conclusion:
It is not mandatory to go for an “either-or” approach, if you can manage the budget then we suggest you go along with both to achieve maximum ROI.
Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.
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