In the recent times, we have seen the click cost increasing. As a result there are many companies who had invested in PPC marketing campaigns are looking at other options. One such option is hiring an SEO company to enhance their online marketing portfolio. This will help them to reduce the advertising investment and also increase their visibility.
There have been many cases of click fraud in the recent past, which has led to the increase on the PPC costs. Hence, slowly more and more businesses and marketing companies are moving towards the search engine optimization medium to fulfill their online marketing needs. But the evaluation process remains the same for choosing a SEO company, which is through cost per click.
One of the most important things to note is that an online promotional campaign created by a reputed SEO company will always provide a lower cost per click than the PPC and this stands true for any industry.
The critical difference between the two lies in the advertising investment that a business or a company will have to undertake. Although both hiring an SEO company and creating a PPC campaign have their merits and demerits, going organic also called natural SEO is by far the best choice. Organic or natural SEO is the result of the work an SEO services company because the ranking is not dependant on paid positioning.
To judge the difference and the impact they have on the advertising costs, we will take a look at PPC and search engine optimization separately.
PPC Marketing
There is one common factor that binds PPC campaigns to other avenues of advertising like billboards, print ads, television etc. All of them create a public awareness and remain in public view as long as the advertisements are on. Which basically means that as long as you pay for them, you advertisement will be on air and the moment you stop the investment, you will be off air and consumers normally have a short-term memory. So there goes your visibility.
It stands true for PPC as well as a print advertisement. In a PPC, once you stop paying, your advertisements will not appear on the search engines and this means there will be no more traffic. So you will end up losing all the exposure and all the graphs, charts and traffic reports from PPC campaigns will suddenly become useless.
This means that you need to figure out your average cost per click in a PPC campaign as everything us happening in real time. A PPC campaign can begin almost instantly. The moment you make your investment, your campaign will start and the moment you cut down on your investment or stoop paying, the PPC campaign will end instantly. This is a clear delineation.
Search Engine Optimization
We mentioned earlier that more and more businesses are looking at using services of a SEO company because it comes across as a sound investment and it doesnt happen in real time.
Search engine optimization as compared to a PPC campaign doesnt have any clear delineation as far as deriving benefit from the campaign is concerned. In a search engine optimization process, there is no end.
If you have invested in a SEO company to carry out search engine optimization services, you can stop your investment after the SEO campaign and it will not affect your visibility. The SEO campaign will still generate revenue and get traffic to your website, long after it has been executed.
The impact of the search engine optimization campaign is not dependent on whether you keep the SEO company or not for long-term but the distinct advantage will definitely be long-term and can extend to a year or even more.
Quitting in the middle of a SEO campaign is not recommended as it may be detrimental for the growth of the business but you can always cut down on your SEO marketing spend. If on a low budget, you can derive several benefits through search engine optimization.
This is the sole reason why going organic with a SEO company is preferred to the PPC campaign because it enhances the ROI on a long-term basis.
The Slam Dunk Contest
These days pay per click seems to be getting a lot more expensive. Hence, business website owners deem it appropriate to combine PPC with search engine optimization. This is so they will be able to take advantage of their exposure and give them a chance of having a much better position in search engines.
Stating the Difference between the Two
It should be known that both these strategies are completely different, and yet they can be used all together. They do perform hand in hand. As a business website owner, you need to completely understand the merits and demerits of each technique.
Search Engine Optimization
Let's compare search engine optimization with building the necessary infrastructure for your business. This is going to be one of your foundations, building blocks, for your website.
As long as you can do this right, you don't really have to extend a lot of effort on pay per click. The results that you will reap from this are definitely long term. They can last for months or even years, even when you have already stopped with your pay per click campaign.
Because of its importance, it is definitely not recommended that you stop the search engine optimization campaign as there are new techniques and tricks that you have to implement into your website. Nevertheless, whenever it's high time that you need to reduce the budget you have for your search engine optimization campaign, you don't have to worry a lot as you will still be reaping good results, though you will never expect it to be the same as your expectations. After all, websites that never stop their search engine optimization campaign will always emerge as no.1 or belong to the top positions.
The only downside with search engine optimization is the time and energy that you have to spend for it. You cannot actually look forward to seeing the results in a day's time. Normally, you will have to wait for around a month or even more, depending on the strategies that you have implemented.
For example, if you have settled for organic listing in directories, which means you didn't pay for your inclusion, it may take to half a year before you can hear from them or confirm if you have been included in their list. In other words, search engine optimization is the best choice if you're looking for long-term results, but if you want something that will support your short-term objective, you may want to settle for a pay per click campaign.
Pay Per Click
There are different advertising techniques. A long time ago, there a lot of companies that set their eyes on conquering televisions, radios, and even streets with their ads. With the onset of the Internet, they have discovered that effects of promotion can easily be seen, and thus, they are concentrating on the variety of ways to advertise their business online. One of the most efficient methods is pay per click, or
PPC.
PPC, by nature, is very powerful. The campaign can definitely help you obtain a very good spot in search engines. Moreover, there's high sales conversion rates with your ad because you can select the most efficient keywords and determine the most ideal landing page. However, it doesn't really mean that it's completely different from other forms of advertising. Their common quality is that once you stop spending some money for your ads, the campaign will also cease.
Nevertheless, PPC is something you may need to undertake if you want a rigorous campaign for your business, especially when you're basically starting out. As soon as you're done signing up and paying for the campaign, you can already see your ads up on the website.
Which One Is It?
Indeed, search engine optimization and pay per click are opposite ends of the world. Knowing the difference will help you determine where you should focus on your energy more.
The good thing about PPC is that it becomes very convenient for you to quantify the results of your marketing campaign. This is because it has a beginning and an end. You will surely be able to calculate your return on investment and assess immediately if PPC is working well for you or if there are things that you need to make some adjustments on.
On the other hand, search engine optimization can take a very long time before you can see the results of your campaign. Second, it becomes a lot more difficult for you to determine the value of your campaign in terms of figures because the effects can extend long term. Yet you need to do this as SEO can guarantee you better placement in search engines.
A wise business website owner knows that he needs to do PPC and SEO. You should, however, know, too, the best time to apply any of these techniques.
Both Moe Tamani & are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.