A very common question asked by small business owners, “Which is better, SEO or PPC?”.
The answer can be a little complicated but it doesn’t have to be. Let’s see if I can help you make the best decision for your business.
First, let’s make sure we’re both on the same page as far as understanding the difference between SEO and PPC.
1) SEO (Search Engine Optimization) – is the process of working on the website content and coding in order to help it come up in the search engines for specific searches. These results are on the left hand side of your Google search.
2) PPC (Pay Per Click) – is the process of bidding on keyword phrases and creating advertisements for these keyword phrases (which point to your website of course). These results are on the right hand side of your Google search. Sometimes you’ll also see PPC ads at the very top of the left hand side as well.
Now, what can each of these give your small business? Knowing their differences will help you make the decision as to which one is better for your bottom line. We’ll go through these with some FAQ.
1) How Long Before I See Results?
SEO will always take longer than PPC. You can create a PPC advertisement and within 15-20 minutes, that ad will be showing up (depending on your settings of course). But we can work on the SEO for a website and we may not see the results of that work for several weeks or months. It depends on the amount of competition for the keyword phrase that is being marketed.
2) What Can I Expect To Spend?
SEO marketing is usually fixed to a certain extent. Eckweb’s monthly marketing is $210.00 per month and that includes adding 1 new page to the website (clients provide the content and graphics). So, it’s much easier to budget what will be spent with SEO marketing.
PPC marketing is fluid. You may begin your marketing campaign bidding $2.00 per click on a specific keyword phrase but your competitors will begin upping that bid to gain ground so by the end of 2-3 months you may end up paying $5.00 per click. That’s just the nature of PPC marketing. The only way to avoid this is to keep changing keyword phrases (to go after keyword phrases that can bring you traffic for only $2.00 per click).
3) How Much Time Will I Be Spending On This Campaign?
SEO marketing inherently involves adding content to your website, on hopefully, a regular basis. Daily, weekly, monthly, whatever – it’s up to the business owner. Of course, the writing can be outsourced to someone else in the company or to a professional SEO Copywriter. So, the amount of time spent on this aspect will depend on how the business owner wants to manage it.
Most business owners do not participate in the actual coding and website development process – so this is not an issue as far as time spent.
PPC marketing, if managed by an Internet Marketing firm will take very little time away from the business owner. Once the parameters are set up in the PPC account – it’s just a matter of making the decision to spend more dollars or change keyword phrases every now and then. Of course, if the business owner is managing his/her own PPC campaign then the amount of time spent can vary greatly, depending on how much knowledge he/she has and how much time is needed on the research.
Both marketing programs will require time to be spent reviewing the analysis of the campaigns. It’s extremely important to keep checking if the campaigns are working or not. And to make changes to the aspects of the campaigns that are not working.
The Bottom Line, Which Is Better, SEO or PPC?
The conclusion is that IF you have a limited budget, you will want to go with SEO marketing. IF you absolutely need traffic to the website immediately, then you will want to go with PPC marketing but be prepared to pay.
I do hope this information was helpful. If not, or if you have other questions about Internet Marketing, contact me at Eckweb. I’m here to help.
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