Every business chases for success with a good return on investment. But it depends mostly on the marketing effort. Without effective marketing strategies, a brand cannot get its desired victory. SEO and PPC both are marketing strategies with different perspectives and attributes. It is tough to judge which one is better than the other to bring success. Each marketing effort has its own set of advantages and disadvantages. Hence, here is a guide to discovering the positive and negative sides of these two marketing approaches.
What is SEO?
SEO is a set of techniques to give a brand a higher rank in search engines like Google. Although Google changes its algorithms from time to time, and it may affect the ranking, SEO means creating helpful content for visitors and Google search crawlers to make sure that the website is good with clean codes and search engine-friendly content.
How SEO support your business
Almost every business can benefit from SEO. But it does not mean that it is the only marketing strategy to believe. While there are multiple benefits to using this marketing approach, it has many disadvantages as well.
Advantages of SEO
1: Cost-effective
SEO is considered one of the cost-effective ways to grow a brand. While you don’t need to pay for organic traffic, you can do much work on your own. Even if you have an SEO expert or agency, it is much more cost-effective than other efforts.
2: Long-term results
If you choose the right person for doing SEO, you can reap the benefits for many years. Businesses have compound benefits from this marketing technique. While the top pages have more backlinks, it helps to provide a good ranking consistently in the future.
3: Targeting every part of the sales funnel
A buyer’s journey is authorized by Google. It makes SEO a unique advertisement approach with a target to focus on every division of the sales funnel. Engage customers at the very first stage with SEO, and it decreases the attainment cost.
4: Enhanced brand awareness and reliance
When your brand has a good rank on Google, it grows trust among consumers. And it does not need to spend anything on search results. With the right skill in content marketing, you can position your brand as a trusted authority.
Drawbacks of SEO
1: Time-consuming
SEO cannot bring results instantly. It takes at least 6 months to see significant results. SEO can bring results undoubtedly, but if you want to have instant results, it is not the right way. But it does not mean you should avoid it. As soon as you imply SEO, you will notice long-term results.
2: Continuous investment
SEO is a set of continuous tasks. As a brand, you need to publish regular content, update existing content, and others. When you are on the first page of the search recommended by Google, it will increase your worth as a brand. For this, you need to keep investing constantly.
3: Very particular
You cannot proceed with SEO half-heartedly. Google and other search engines change their algorithms fast. Using a black hat SEO can lead to a penalty. So, you need to follow the optimization rules strictly and properly. Quick wins are not possible by SEO, but you may be penalized for this. And once you are blacklisted by Google, coming back is a tough job.
4: A higher level of skills
Google Algorithms are complex. Thus, understanding the right SEO techniques requires the right skills. Besides, it is a time-consuming task. Thus, anyone cannot do SEO, but it needs true efficiency to bring success. Creating content, optimizing your on-page elements, and building links require a higher level of skills. It is why most brands look for an SEO expert or an agency for performing SEO.
What is PPC?
PPC or Pay-Per-Click is an advertising method where you buy visits to your site. Brands pay a charge every time a visitor clicks on their ads. PPC allows your brand to control search engine traffic rapidly by paying or bidding for keywords related to your brand or service.
How PPC supports your businesses
PPC or Pay Per Click drives targeted traffic to your website. PPC gives you an opening to appear at the top of search engines. It is a powerful marketing technique with unique features and perspectives. It offers multiple benefits, but the most noticeable weak point of PPC is the price you have to bear for implementing the PPC strategy.
Advantages of PPC
1: Instant results
PPC is probably the only marketing tool to bring results on the same day. Although it needs to create an eye-catching landing page, you will get the fastest results with PPC. Investment is high, though you have a fast return on investment through this marketing effort. Another attribute of PPC is you can gauge the result by getting more visitors to your website in return for money.
2: Outstanding visibility
As PPC ads are visible on desktops and mobile devices, it has more reach than other techniques. When you spend on PPC, your brand has enhanced visibility on search engines with a highlight on key business information, such as the contact number and site links.
3: High-intent clicks
Users click on your PPC ads mostly for purchasing the product. Thus, PPC clicks are high-intent with a higher conversation rate than SEO.
4: Business data
With a PPC campaign, you can produce more business data, such as which keywords are working for driving traffics. It helps you with the right decisions to optimize your campaigns.
Drawbacks of PPC
1: Higher cost
PPC marketing needs a significant marketing budget. Even some industries like legal and medical require higher rates for PPC campaigns. It is pretty expensive, and you need to spend thousands of dollars to get the desired results.
2: Constant investment
You need to keep spending on PPC campaigns to drive results. You will lose your traffic and sales once you stop paying.
3: Rich skills
Creating an ad within your budget requires higher skills and knowledge. Without an expert individual, it is not easy to understand the optimizing techniques and keywords.
4: Updating ads
You need to refresh your ads constantly to maintain the engagement features. To drive sales continuously, it needs constant updates of ads.
Also, Read
SEO Checklist: Ways To Improve Your SEO In 2022
Practically, you cannot make your choice between SEO and PPC. While PPC is an outstanding tool to achieve an instant result, SEO is good enough to observe consistent support after 6 months or a year. While you can rank for many keywords with SEO, you can target only one with a PPC campaign. When you combine these two marketing efforts, you will have more effective results. Thus, if you have an eye on reaching your targeted traffic efficiently, get the benefits of both SEO and PPC.