SEO vs PPC: Which one is better and offers more? This debate has been going on for a long time. As people always get confused about which one to choose. The one that gives your business a boost by organically and sustainably growing the rank of the website, or the one through which you can buy the search engine rankings through pay-per-click campaigns.

SEO vs PPC services both are parts of digital marketing strategy and they both are important in their own ways.

Before knowing how they are different, let’s see what they individually are.

What is SEO?

SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization and by using this service, the SEO expert can give your website ranking new heights. SEO works by optimizing content with keywords, Meta tags, Meta descriptions, Alt tags, HTML coding, by following search engine algorithms and incorporating other such SEO strategies to give the ranking a boost. With SEO’s help, one can achieve rank #1 by optimizing on-page and off-page strategies.

SEO works harder so that search engine crawlers or spiders can find your website easily and put it on page one or rank #1 when someone searches for services related to your page. It works continuously to boost brand awareness of the page and get organic traffic by diverting people’s attention to the website.

After SEO, let’s see, “What is PPC?”

PPC or pay-per-click is a service that makes the company’s ranking go high through posting paid advertisements on search engine result pages. When someone clicks on the ad that you have posted on search engines, then you need to pay for it. With paid ads, the businesses attract consumer’s attention. It is a way through which PPC companies can help you buy the clicks and visits of consumers.

Search engine advertising, a form of PPC, helps advertisers to place a bid for the search engine’s sponsored links for the placement of ads. And, when the consumer searches for the keyword related to businesses’ offering, it works by placing your business in the front of the viewer.

After knowing what they are, let’s know about the pros and cons of them simultaneously, to understand what your company is going to need the most.

SEO Pros

• SEO is cost-effective as it may take time but it keeps working on the brand image of the company to grow the visibility, and thereby ranking of the business. When the consumer searches for the services relating to your business, with constant SEO practice, search engines make your business come forward. In this way, the SEO works in a cost-effective manner.

• The ads that SEO posts don’t cost you a single penny thus there is no added weight on your pocket. They help you get the consumers’ attention organically and bring organic traffic to the website.

• With the right SEO strategy, your business gets stability as it makes the website ranking go high constantly without turning back.

• SEO keeps growing your ranking and getting the attention of consumers to the website by working incessantly. SEO is not a one-day work, it is an investment that needs hard work.  

• In SEO, you don’t have to pay for getting clicks or get people’s attention and you can invest the money in your business, rather than investing it for getting ads to get traffic.

SEO Cons

• SEO is not a magic wand that you wave and all the traffic will come to your website. It takes time and effort to gain people’s attention. For the businesses that have just started, it is going to take time to give that kind of cognition that pulls the consumers to the website.

• One has to understand that a site cannot be fully content optimized, there might be something or other that is lacking. Either there might be the work left for on-page optimization, or for off-page, there might be some work left on the link-building front or on the technical SEO side. It is a continuous work investment that a business has to carry on for permanent growth.

• Search Engine Optimization strategies take time and with the search engine’s ever-changing algorithm, the SEO expert has to be on alert always. One mistake or delay can harm, years of work and reputation. 

• SEO strategy also includes analysis of competitive business websites. If the SEO Company fails to recognize the competitor’s weaknesses and strengths, your business may suffer a lot, and may even lose the battle. 

PPC Pros

• PPC is known for fetching astonishing instant results. With the right PPC campaigns, the business can see an increase in traffic, ranking, clicks, and conversions.

• As PPC ads are placed on the top, it gives the businesses more chances of being seen and clicked by the viewers. When the consumer searches for the service that is related to your business, and your business website comes up, then there are more chances of visitors becoming your consumers.

• PPC helps in lead generation and with potential lead generation, the businesses can connect easily with the consumers through email campaigns, phone or mobile numbers, call-to-action, and expanded site links.

• PPC campaigns don’t need a big team like SEO, it comprises PPC experts and sometimes a copywriter who can write captivating ads and other such smaller things to get the attention of viewers, and you are done.

• With the right search engine advertising campaigns, a PPC company can help you target consumers directly and impressively through shopping ads, Gmail ads, video ads, and many other such ads.

• With optimized testing, like A/B tests, or run split tests, the PPC strategist gets you to hold off very rich and optimized keywords that work as a bullet for increasing your ranking.

• You can get better return on ad spend or ROAS, the PPC campaigns help you get maximum and optimum results to grow your company.

• PPC strategies help you breathe easily on search engine algorithm’s ever-changing front as with your business running on top, changing algorithms will have lesser or no effect at all.

PPC Cons

• PPC advertising never comes for free and requires a huge budget that may or may not garner results. You have to pay for every single click, and for more clicks, you have to keep spending more and more.

• You have to keep analyzing the conversion rate as if your high-budget investment is not garnering results, you are wasting all that money.  

• The closer your competitors are, the more budget you have to invest for conversion of consumers to the website.

• No investment means no website conversions, no traffic, and no improvement with a plus of loss.

• The PPC manager or company that you are hiring needs investment too, they don’t come for free. Other than investing in ads, you have to pay for the team as well.

• PPC campaigns need budget investment and without investment, your website will be traffic-free. The minute you stop paying for ads, that is the moment when you lose the battle and your competitor wins the game.

So, the battle will keep going on whether you need one or the other. If one says only one internet marketing strategy is efficient, then the person might be mistaken.

It’s better to look at it as SEO and PPC, not as SEO vs PPC.

When you look at it as SEO vs PPC, it means you want to consider only one aspect of online marketing where your business may get a good boost or suffer a lot. By choosing one and sidelining the other, you might be making a mistake.

So, you can apply a good approach by merging the two. By following a hybrid approach of mingling both of the services, you enhance brand awareness, boost business identity and increase return on investments.

Benefits of SEO vs PPC

By merging the two, one can see huge benefits in business. They are:

• Increase the traffic with high-ranking keywords and paid clicks as when you get both of them, no one is going to stop you from ranking higher.

• PPC keywords that are generating good clicks can be incorporated for keyword search of SEO to get maximum attention.

• Keyword testing in PPC helps you manage long-term keyword strategies for SEO.

• With organic search, you get people’s attention and with paid ads you make them buy the services or products that your business is offering.

• Enhance the visibility of your website with paid ads and organic keyword-rich searches.

SEO vs PPC? It totally depends on the goals, budgets, requirements that your company has. You can choose one that works best for you, and you can even choose both to get optimum and satisfactory results.

Banyanbrain is a proficient digital marketing company in India that helps you achieve the best results by applying both online marketing strategies. Other than this, we have ORM, SMO, and website design and development services to provide your business an overall boost and increase brand awareness and brand image of your business.