SEO vs. PPC: Which is Better?

The jockeying for internet traffic is at an all-time high. Competition between e-commerce brands is fierce, and the strategies to land the next client are complex and can take time to show results. While the world of internet marketing has evolved, two foundational strategies are still producing results for marketers and brands alike. If you can master the art and science of SEO and paid search, you’ll be able to master traffic levels, which impact the bottom line of the brand you represent.

Both SEO and PPC are dynamic in nature and have evolved drastically over the years. But one question that still remains among digital marketers is which one to choose between the two. SEO vs. PPC: Which is better?

The truth is, there’s no such thing as ‘a perfect digital marketing strategy.’ But yes, you can always demonstrate your expertise by employing the best strategies that match the prevalent conditions of your business. This is how it goes.

SEO vs PPC?

For me, PPC is more like residing in rented accommodation. You enjoy all the benefits, practice all the possible goods, but in reality, you don’t own it.

SEO, on the other hand, is like buying your own home. The efforts are hard and intense, but what you earn actually belongs to you alone.

One deciding factor in choosing between the two can be opting one that complements your present marketing ideas and business needs. But if this one statement doesn’t really click in your mind, then read this post to get in-depth knowledge of Organic SEO and Pay-per-Click Advertising—and then you should be able to make a wiser decision. You should be able to answer the question “SEO vs. PPC: Which is better?”

Since I want you to make a firm decision by selecting the best between the two for your own business, I’ll be listing both the positives and negatives of both subjects. But before I dig out all the details, I want you to take a quick glance at some of the latest statistics for the two:

Important PPC Statistics that You Must Know

• Businesses can earn an average of $2 for every $1 spent on Adwords. (Source: Google Economic Impact)

• Around 41 percent of clicks made through paid advertising go to the top 3 paid ads on pages resulting from searches. (Diversity Search Strategy)

• 50 percent more visitors on PPC are expected to make purchases than those on organic searches. (Unbounce)

• 65 percent of companies across the world falling in B2B divisions have acquired a large customer base through paid ads on LinkedIn. (Hubspot)

• There are almost 300,000 mobile apps that are presently serving Google Mobile Ads.

These are a few of the latest statistics about PPC. But wait: don’t make a decision that quickly. I have a couple of statistics for Organic SEO as well.

Organic SEO Statistics that are Hard to Ignore

• It has been confirmed by 61 percent of marketers that expanding their organic presence and improving their SEO are the top ingredients of their inbound marketing strategy. (State of Inbound)

• Google receives more than 100 billion searches a month. (Mashable)

• B2B researchers perform on an average of 12 searches before they engage in a specific brand site. (Google)

• On average, the first page of Google search result contains around 1,890 words. (Backlinko)

• 72 percent of the marketers begin with a generic search before they head toward a detailed search. (Google)

Based on these statistics, one thing is pretty clear: both Organic SEO and Pay-Per-Click advertising can be a boon to your business — but only if used wisely and through the correct approach. But there is something more that you need to know. Let’s peck up the secrets of PPC and Organic SEO that have helped other companies to make the most out of them.

Know how PPC has Helped Companies to Gain Success!

Despite high levels of click-through rates and trust for Organic SEO, Pay-Per-Click advertising has been able to deliver benefits to businesses. It’s important to know-how.

Respected page Positioning

One way that paid search dominates the other foldable content is the perfect positioning on the page. With almost 4 ads appearing on the desktop and 3 on the mobile screen, users always see the paid search ads, even if they intend to move to the other page.

Laser Targeted Approach

Getting in front of a potential customer is easy and fast with PPC. It’s possible to target ads with specific keywords, language, geography, device, and a match to the preferences of the audiences.

Swift in Creation and Modeling

A PPC campaign is easy to create and it can ramp up in just a few weeks. There’s no faster alternative to this as a way to effectively land in front of potential customers, particularly at the moment when they’re willing to make a purchase.

Enhanced Visual Appearance

When you’re selling a product, you can always make the best use of the visual shopping ads feature from Google. It allows users to view a product they wish to purchase. These ads are truly effective in enhancing the overall click-through rate experience, which is something absent in Organic SEO.

More Space and Better Control

With PPC ads, you have more space to deliver your advertising messages and even better control over the description to be displayed. Locations, site links, prices, and other imperative details — all can be listed with ease.

Targeting Specific Audience

If you don’t want to waste your time and efforts in targeting the generic population, then PPC ads can add worth to your marketing strategy. It offers an easy way to target specific groups from among the masses. They’ll be able to search your site, which is only going to bring gains to your business.

Controlled Budget

You can always plan a budget for your PPC campaign and implement it accordingly. There’s no need for spending more and worrying later.

Well-Managed Adwords

This is another thing that you will definitely not get through the Organic SEO approach. Adwords are well-managed and by meticulous matching and analysis of the search terms, you can remove the entire junk search and gain higher ROI over time.

Test and Track Functionality

Landing pages, call-to-action-buttons, and split-test ads are all efficient ways to determine and track the results.

Organic SEO – Why Top Industry Businesses Love It!

PPC is incredibly speedy, but still, industry experts love Organic SEO. Know Why!

A Key to Generate Awareness to your Business

Higher visibilities in search engines for specifically targeted keywords ensure that your business is always in front of the interested customers. It is almost similar to advertising and is an excellent way to drive your brand awareness.

Enhanced Branding

If your business is offering customers a great solution to their informational queries of commercial search terms, then Organic SEO is the best way to increase your brand’s image. Whenever the users will conduct a search, your brand will always be on the top, and you become the authoritative voice for the chosen topic.

Increasing Credibility and Gaining User’s Trust

As I’ve already mentioned in the statistics above, large numbers of users trust organic results rather than paid ads. Most of the users even skip ads without watching them, particularly if it seems like it will be of no benefit to them. So if you want your business to be visible, and to gain a strong reputation and trust among your audience, then organic SEO is the way to go.

Higher ROI and Increased Website Traffic

Traffic from Organic SEO comes at a reduced price and yet it can help enhance your ROI to a great extent.

Increased Click-through-Rate (CTR)

While the below Infographics is enough to provide you with a clear idea on this, still I want to mention that a higher number of users click on the organic results as compared to the paid advertisements. However, there are always exceptions. Still, this is something pivotal in SEO.

Reference Link – http://www.smartinsights.com/search–engine–marketing/search–engine–statistics/

Larger Scope

The extent of scope in Organic SEO is larger than other advertising solutions as it allows you to promote and advertise every bit of your website, which is only going to bring you better gains.

High-End Strategic Benefit

Getting visibility through organic SEO is not easy, but this brings you a strategic advantage over your competitors. You just have to establish your business in the organic world, and there will be no easy rescue for your competitors. This way, you will enter a race in which your competitors will not only be able to win. They might not even be capable of entering it.

Organic SEO or PPC – The Future Predictions

As far as the future is concerned, both SEO and PPC will definitely be pivotal to the success of an SEO strategy for a business. With the unstoppable growth of mobile devices, Google is going to give more thumbs up to mobile-friendly websites. Eventually, the popularity of mobile-specific ads will definitely upsurge.

Moreover, with new updates introduced by Google now and then, and with algorithms updates, the popularity of SEO is not going to fade away anytime soon. In fact, local SEO will gain more significance alongside search results that are being more personalized in nature.

SEO vs PPC: Which is Better?

Answering this question is a challenge — not just for me, but likely for everyone else out there. The main reason is that businesses have unique situations that require distinct solutions. So focusing on just one side of the coin could be a big mistake.

For instance, a new e-commerce store online competing with big brands like Amazon, Flipkart, and more will definitely not be able to make up the competition with organic SEO alone. It needs something more! Also, a well-established online business with a high rate of competition and constantly needing more figures is going to lose its credibility if it relies just on PPC.

Then what’s the solution?

A solid SEO strategy and a strong paid search strategy should work concurrently to cover the deficiencies of the other. While they work in unison, they don’t affect each other directly because they focus on different factors influencing search engine performance.

SEO focuses on organic search results: the results generated by search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other Search Engines. 

Paid search is an auction-based system, where the highest-paying advertiser gets the most prominent ad placement and is charged every time a user clicks on the ad.

Paid search is precise; you will be served the search results desired—so you pay for that level of accuracy. 

SEO does not cost in terms of having to pay for traffic; however, it takes in-depth planning to ensure the proper strategy is in-play. 

Branding Efficacy 

SEO wins here, as higher rankings in the SERPS will have a positive impact on your website, which will help increase organic traffic—the best kind of visitor in terms of sales/conversion. 

According to statistics, 94% of internet users by-pass search ads and click organic results.

Return on Investment 

SEO offers free clicks but can take upwards of 90 days + to show results. Paid search can show immediate traffic lift, but will take a sizeable budget to compete in crowded verticals.  

If your need is more immediate, then paid search is the clear winner here. However, the combination of paid search and SEO can ensure your brand receives a click from the best possible visitor.  

Scope

With paid search, new opportunities can arise at any time. Your paid search team must be diligent with optimization as most verticals can shift in an instant

SEO, again, is free (minus man-power); however, the return is a long-term play. The landscape will not change as often as paid search—some evergreen content can produce results for years—but it will not offer the quick return either.

Long-term sustainability

Once you have the top spot in your target SEO keywords, it can take a while for competitors to overthrow you. In the meantime, you’ll enjoy all the benefits of being on top!

You will still have to allocate funds for SEO maintenance, but the costs should be less than what you paid during the initial 6 to 12 months of your campaign.

In comparison, the effectiveness of a paid search campaign is directly linked to the amount spent. If you decide to stop funding a campaign, you’ll find yourself back to square one and all of that traffic will stop showing up.

Flexibility

SEO strictly focuses on search engine results. Paid search allows you to follow your clients with retargeting strategies. Your placement depends on your ad type, budget, and target audience.

Verdict

According to me, the best approach to win over your competition and to gain your customer’s interest is to follow a balanced approach including both the ingredients — that is, Organic SEO and PPC. Most brands will be able to extract value from both SEO and paid search campaigns. Both offerings play different roles in the traffic space

One great advantage of this would be to integrate the conversion and keyword data obtained from PPC into organic SEO. Even high-performing keywords can be used for both these elements to increase the overall volume of traffic on your website. Also, you can switch keywords from one zone to the other to gain maximum benefits in terms of conversions and traffic.

With PPC, it’s possible to test your keywords strategy and landing pages well in advance before you fed them into your organic SEO strategy. This is great, particularly for long-term SEO strategies.

So I would suggest you plan an integrated strategy for search marketing, one that accentuates the positives of both SEO and PPC, and at the same time eliminates all their pitfalls.

Make sure the strategy is customized to your business. Only then can it help you land in a win-win situation. The combo method will balance your marketing efforts and will ensure your web traffic is concise and ready to hear the message your brand offers.