If you are a startup or a website owner, the question you would be thinking about the most is SEO or PPC. Why? Because when it comes to digital marketing, there are diverse ways to get visitors to your website, but the two most common ways are search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click (PPC) marketing. Despite there being several ways of getting traffic to your website, none of them has been able to make waves like SEO and PPC.
However, for the fact that you probably have to use one of these, website owners are constantly wondering which to use between SEO and PPC. An online guru might have advised you to go for SEO, but you might also have a friend that has been killing it with PPC. This conflicting opinion can be crippling and confusing; all you want to know is which is the best digital marketing strategy between SEO and PPC. Let’s find out.
What’s Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?
Search Engine Optimisation, which is usually referred to as SEO, is about getting search traffic to your website by optimizing your website and webpages to rank high in the organic results of search engines like Google. The challenging part of SEO is that you can’t pay to rank high; you will have to spend months trying to improve your rank depending on how competitive your industry is.
Search engines usually rank websites by using algorithms to calculate the relevance and quality of webpages. Therefore, to improve your rank in a search engine, you just need to find out what the search engine algorithms consider important and then optimize your website accordingly.
Why Should You Use SEO?
You should opt for SEO for the following reasons.
Consistency
It will definitely take time to get your website to the top of the search engine. However, you will enjoy consistent traffic as long as you continue with your SEO campaign
Authority
If you want your website to be an established resource in your niche, then SEO is the way to go. The best way to become an authority website is to continually generate traffic to your website, which will eventually build your reputation as an authority.
Increased value
Just like real estate, websites have value, and if you wish to sell your website, you will need to increase its value. SEO is the best way to increase the value of a website. This is because its page rank determines the value of a website, search engine rankings over a period of time, amount of traffic generated, consistency of traffic generated link popularity and others.
Now, What IS Pay Per Click (PPC)?
Pay Per Click marketing, also known as PPC, is a marketing strategy whereby you pay for clicks to your website. Using PPC, you get instant results and visitors from relevant keywords on search engines. With just a little bit of time, you can start your PPC campaign and start getting traffic for your website. Also, it is associated with search engine advertising like Google ads.
PPC brings highly targeted visitors to your website. This is because it can not only be used to target the location of users but can go as far as targeting their age, background, and income. Although all these can come at a steep price, it has great and fast rewards.
Why Should You Use PPC
You should opt for PPC for the following reasons
Immediate Result
If you require fast and immediate traffic on your website, then PPC is the best way to go. Once you start your PPC campaign, you will be guaranteed visitors in a matter of minutes.
Targeted Traffic
If you wish to narrow down your prospective visitors based on demographics, then PPC is the way to go. This is because PPC allows you to promote your ad to the age range, gender, income bracket, education level, and even marital status of prospective visitors.
Time-Sensitive Offer
If you are marketing a time-sensitive product, then using PPC marketing is the best option. PPC will deliver the traffic you desire before the offer ends.
To Wrap It Up
SEO and PPC are both great digital marketing strategies. The major difference between SEO and PPC is that the traffic generated by SEO is free while you will have to pay for the one generated by PPC. They both have their strength and weaknesses, and in an ideal world, using a combination of the two would be the best option. But if you really have to choose one it has to be based on your needs.