PPC Advertising vs. SEO

**nicknite86** · 06-11-2010 11:22 AM

There are two ways to get traffic to any site. You can either get traffic to your website for free, such as SEO or you can use paid advertising; PPC (pay-per-click).

Often, there is a debate and constant warring between which strategy will be the best strategy to implement in exposing your site to the masses.

In actuality, Internet Marketing is a numbers game, and so the more targeted traffic you can get to your website, the more you will convert, and the more money you’ll make.

So which strategy is the best, free or paid?

Search Engine Optimization:

Free marketing strategies; such as SEO, are just as good as paid marketing, if not better. For example, when the majority of people go searching for information online, they go to Google or any other search engine and type in a phrase; such as “How to Cook and Clean”. The results they get back are divided into two parts, and that is Organic and Paid advertising. These differences are usually easy to identify. The organic results are listed on the left hand side and are listed 1-10 through a series of pages, while the paid are listed on the far right hand side.

When doing a search people will often decide which way is best to resolve their dilemma or situation, and most often people tend to use the free results. Thus, this is enough to indicate that if you want to get highly targeted and free traffic to your website it would be a good idea to get into the Organic results. However, many things are involved, including getting backlinks to your site, making sure you have the right keyword density, and optimizing your site. The downside to Search Engine Optimization is that in order to get your website ranked high, it can be very time consuming. This is a reason why many marketers choose to skip SEO and use Pay-Per-Click with Google Adwords, Bing, or Yahoo Overture.

PAY PER CLICK (PPC):

In short, Pay-Per-Click is when you tell Google; or any other company, how much you want to be charged every time your advertisement is clicked. The higher the amount that you set to be charged will often determine how high your website will rank in the search engines. On the other hand, if you set a low amount then your PPC may not give you good results.

The “pros” of PPC marketing is that it takes a small amount of time to get up and running, but the “con” is that you can not just set up a campaign and expect to make tons of money. PPC is a science and should be implemented with strategy, therefore doing the homework is crucial because if you don’t choose the right keywords and/or charges you could end up losing tons of money and FAST. So PPC takes skill, learning, and possibly experience to succeed.

In short, SEO is a great way for beginners to get a site ranked high in organic results. SEO may be frustrating but once you succeed with SEO the benefits are great. This is also true with PPC, but there is much more risk involved since your success is dependent on your money and skill. Overall, it’s necessary to research both SEO and PPC as much as possible before leaning upon either.

**money_magnetism** · 06-11-2010 11:37 AM

Great post!

I agree with the "con" of PPC - because it is so quick and has the ability to get your site highly ranked, people often don't take the time to do the basic keyword research. Also, for those who are having difficulty conceptualizing how PPC works, think of it like a bidding system. The higher your 'bid' for clicks is (the more you are willing to pay per click) the higher your website rank will be. Obviously, the highest bidders are the most visible to the people searching.

SEO can be time-consuming, but in my opinion it is the way to go. Think about it for a second: when was the last time you searched for something and clicked on the links to your right? I know that I don't very often. I click on the results that are in front of me - the ones brought up by organic searching. Additionally, there are many, many sites online that can give you some good advice on SEO and tips to improve your site's ranking through Google. Just be careful to do your homework; not everything you read online is true or works well!

**KyleXY** · 06-11-2010 04:08 PM

This depends highly on the type of traffic you want, the type of business you're running, and numerous other factors. Certain things, paid traffic whether it's PPC or something else, is better while for other things, it may not be as efficient (although this is rarely the case). SEO is the old fashion way of getting traffic and works generally in a different manner. Both have their quirks but neither are mutually exclusive. You can do both. In some cases however, sometimes SEO won't apply unless you're building a full site or service online. PPC generally is more versatile and is generally the quicker better way to generating fast revenues but again, depends on the business model. Both have their own advantages and disadvantages but the cons of PPC or any other paid traffic sources is very real. However it's not difficult if you actually put in time and effort. A lot of people fail at it simply because they don't do enough to measure and test every metric they should be.

**littledragon** · 06-12-2010 07:11 AM

Well, depends on your budget. Both if possible, ideally of course getting to the top couple of natural search positions with various keywords will of course be free. Some Adwords spends can quickly become huge if not monitored correctly.

**jonn655** · 06-18-2010 04:03 AM

Either way - whether it is PPC or SEO, proper management and planning is required. One problem with PPC model is that it is sometimes abused by corrupt web developers or competitors; however recent automated systems upgraded by search engine companies is intended to check this. Results, I believe, which appear in organic or natural searches tend to have greater credibility.

**fancysmith** · 09-03-2010 01:01 AM

PPC is a form of advertising does most of the effect of attracting other for more information. Today, a wide range of PPC programs, offers a range of benefits of the Internet. Google and Yahoo to provide some of the most popular. While Search Engine Optimization is becoming an increasingly popular way to attract Internet users, often the site, which search engines to achieve effective SEO activities.