#PPC or #SEO - Which is Better for You? -

Contents hide

1 Pay Per Click Pros and Cons

1.1 Pros of PPC

1.2 Cons of PPC

2 Search Engine Optimization Pros and Cons

2.1 Pros of SEO

2.2 Cons of SEO

3 Advantages of Combining SEO and PPC

Brands often find it confusing to decide which marketing method to select between professional Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) / Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

Brands with huge budgets can opt for PPC, but the results won’t be long-lasting.

Conversely, brands with smaller budgets can opt for SEO to ensure long-lasting benefits. But SEO simply cannot generate instant results.

So, both SEO and PPC have their advantages and disadvantages. You can, however, combine the best from both of these marketing strategies to gain the maximum benefit for your brand.

Let’s check out some of the pros and cons of SEO and PPC, as well as the benefits you can expect by integrating PPC and SEO.

Pay Per Click Pros and Cons

Pros of PPC

Increase the visibility of your brand: When your ads pop up in the top search results on the search engine results pages, it helps you increase your brand visibility.
Easily target your audience based on their location: Once you identify which locations to target based on your audience, you can easily bid for exactly those location-based keywords. As a result, this increases your chances of getting clicks from your potential customers in the specific local market of interest.
Run PPC ads on your own website: You can select relevant and important keywords and add your product or service link to them. This will lead your potential customer to the ad page of your service or product. The best part is when a prospect clicks on the ad, you need to pay but you will be paying yourself.

Cons of PPC

PPC campaigns can be really expensive: You need to have a dedicated budget to successfully implement a PPC campaign.
People can easily block your PPC ads: As a matter of fact, 26% of users prefer to use ad-blockers on their devices. Usually, people use ad-blockers because of the fear of malware and/or viruses, but it will also impact your PPC efforts.
PPC demands constant and ongoing investment: Your ads will stop running the moment you stop paying. So, you need to constantly pump money into your PPC campaigns to secure a top position on search engine results pages (SERPs).

Search Engine Optimization Pros and Cons

Pros of SEO

SEO helps generate high-quality traffic and leads to your website. This helps you improve and generate more ROI for your brand.
Users trust organic search results more than PPC or other types of ads. If your website appears atop a key SERP, it helps you gain the trust of your target audience and build credibility for your brand.
When compared to paid marketing, SEO is basically free. This difference makes SEO a very cost-effective strategy. You need to ensure that you use SEO friendly keywords in your website’s content. This will help you gain the top rank in search results.
When done correctly, SEO can establish your domain as an authoritative website in your niche. You need to create high quality, engaging content for your website. This will help you build a strong online presence and secure solid rankings in search results. Then it will become easier for you to win the trust of your target audience, which in turn will help boost your sales.

Cons of SEO

SEO can be time consuming. If your website is still not SEO friendly, it may take a lot of your time to completely renovate it. So, make sure optimize your website well if you want to use SEO.
Unlike PPC, SEO strategies take time to show results. It’s not a quick fix for brands who are looking for instant results.

Advantages of Combining SEO and PPC

Both SEO and PPC have benefits. So why not combine both of them to generate the maximum benefits for your brand?

Following are some of the major benefits of using PPC and SEO together.

It increases your chances to dominate both organic and paid results. As a result, it will help you establish your brand in an authoritative position in your niche.
PPC helps you improve your SEO targeting. PPC allows you to target specific groups on social media like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. This in turn helps you collect valuable information about your target demographics. Your SEO team can capitalize on that useful information and data to create new engaging content, and even to refine the entire SEO strategy itself.

Do you want to learn more about SEO and PPC? Then check this infographic by SpyFu.

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Disclaimer: The views and opinions stated in this post are that of the author, and Return On Now may or may not agree with any or all of the commentary.