This is a common question that always arise when people intend to use search engines to market their product… Search engine optimization and PPC (pay-per-click) which one is better? From my opinion, I think that there are pros and cons for both search engine marketing methods.
Conventional wisdom might ask: why would you pay for a ranking when you can get one for free? This may be an easy to answer when in the past, by just putting keywords in the meta tags, you will be able to achieve high organic listings for your keywords. However, search engine algorithms has became more complicated, and to obtain good organic ranking in search engines, you will need to put in more effort, time and dedication to secure and sustain strong organic search rankings. Let us discuss some of the key advantages and disadvantages of both SEO and PPC:
SEO Advantages: Do not pay for clicks, higher conversion rate, users may more readily trust organic listings.
SEO Disadvantages: Take longer time to obtain rankings, more effort and time to sustain rankings, cannot guarantee placement, unpredictable environment due to ever-changing search engine algorithms.
PPC Advantages: Immediate exposure, have control over editorial, enable easy testing and optimization of ad text.
PPC Disadvantages: Expensive, pay for clicks, requires ongoing tweaking and analysis for success, some users may not trust sponsored listings.
As you can clearly see from the comparison above, both SEO and PPC has their pros and cons.
In fact, I think an effective search campaign should consist of both SEO and PPC because you can use both to target different set of keywords. For example, you should use PPC and buy keyword phrases that are very broad and short-tail or extremely niche and long-tail. Then optimize organically for medium-tail terms that have a strong search volume but a moderate level of competition. If your website sells golf equipments and clubs, you should use PPC to target keywords like “golf” and “custom made golf clubs for amateurs”. Then use a term such as “golf clubs” (medium-tail term) for your organic search optimization.
With the right search engine marketing plan, you will be able to get tons of targeted traffic to your website. If you do not have the time to plan out your search engine marketing campaign, it is best for you to hand both PPC and SEO to one agency to handle it entirely. Entrusting these two aspects to an agency alone will allow your agency to make both of them work well together and prevent any overlap. This potentially enable you to create synergies that would otherwise have been missed if you engage a SEO agency and PPC agency separately.
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Tags: internet marketing, online marketing, paid listing, pay per click, PPC, search engine marketing, search engine optimization, SEO
