A common question I get asked by entrepreneurs is about Pay-Per-Click (PPC) versus search engine optimization (SEO). Which is better? What are the pros and cons? Which is best for my website? To help you make up your mind, today I will cover PPC and complete the mini-series next week on SEO.
What Is Pay-Per-Click?
Pay-Per-Click is a common advertising method entrepreneurs are using to promote their products. The typical model is when someone does a keyword search in a search engine (ie Google) your ad will appear on the right side of the page. Every time someone clicks on your ad, you pay Google for the lead. It is then up to you to convert that click into a revenue generating opportunity.
Pros of Pay-Per-Click
- Immediate Traffic – The best thing about Pay-Per-Click is that the results are immediate. If you need traffic right away you can sign up for a Google Adwords account and start buying traffic for your website today.
- Targeted Traffic – You have the option to select keywords that your target clients would likely be searching for. This ensures that the traffic coming to your site has pre-qualified themselves as a potential buyer.
- Promotional Traffic – If you have a special promotion that has a limited timeline, Pay-Per-Click can be a great tool to help get the word out. While it may take months of preparation to rank organically for a certain keyword, you can drive traffic right away to show off your promotion. You can also cut off the traffic when the promotion has ended.
- Easy to Measure – Thanks to tools like Google Analytics, it is now easy to measure how well you are converting your traffic and if it is a money making or money losing venture for you.
- Test your Message – You can run different ads with different headlines and different value propositions to test their effectiveness. I know entrepreneurs who use Pay-Per-Click just to test out potential positioning statements before they launch a product so they know they have the best ones when they start selling.
- Keep your Web Design – SEO often requires that you change around the look and feel of your website in order to rank for certain keywords. Using Pay-Per-Click allows you to drive qualified traffic while keeping the interface you like and focusing the website on conversation rather than lead generation.
Cons of Pay-Per-Click
- Ongoing Cost - This is the most obvious con. You have to pay for each click that comes to your website. Every month you need to continue paying if you want the traffic to keep coming.
- Expensive – As keywords become more competitive is it increasingly difficult to rank at the top of the paid ads without paying top dollar. There are fewer and fewer bargains available as entrepreneurs become more Pay-Per-Click savvy and are investing time, energy, and money into making their Pay-Per-Click strategies work for them.
- Not as Popular as Organic Search – If you rank at the top of the Pay-Per-Click you will not get nearly as many hits as you will on the organic search. People still prefer the natural results versus the paid ones.
- Click Fraud – What happens if someone clicks on your ad by accident or, worse, your competition intentionally clicks on your ads. The end result is that you are paying money for those clicks and you are not getting visitors who have any intention of buying from you.
Next week I will continue the series of by looking at the Pros and Cons of SEO.
Evan Carmichael
That’s a nice compilation of pros and sons, Evan. Another pro that might be worth adding is that you can turn off your PPC campaign for times that aren’t as lucrative (IE: overnight, on weekends/holidays)
I also think that there have been some changes to help protect advertisers against click fraud over the last couple of years.
I’m looking forward to hearing your theories on SEO.
Have a good weekend!
Heather
Hi,
I think you’re right on the money here, however there are a few more cons I think that are worth mentioning.
1. Though many search engines promote the ease with which you can set up a PPC campaign, they tend to gloss over the fact that employing all these techniques to drive quality traffic to your site can be a costly experience, and though you get near-immediate positioning in the results pages, making the most of that position (ie getting visitors to not only click on your site, but also convert into customers) is much harder than anyone new to PPC or Paid Search would think by the ‘promotion’ made by the likes of Google etc. when advising businesses to use it.
2. Your mention of Webdesign and PPC being independent is, though sometimes accurate, mostly the biggest reason people fail to see the best results on their PPC campaigns. Landing pages and website stickiness are the main cause of visitors not converting on a site after clicking on that sponsored link. And bear in mind the website owner paid for that click – when quite often they should be paying to make sure their site looks and navigates professionally before trying to direct potential customers to it… otherwise they’re wasting their money…
Thanks.
Elliot Jones of Media Boutique ltd
I would like to suggest seo services, not ppc. Because ppc offers cheaper results than seo. If you are really looking for growth then u should choose seo not ppc.
Thanks