In the 1990s & the early 2000s, a lot of online businesses invested heavily in search engine optimization to drive traffic to their sites. And it worked...SEO is still a very effective strategy to this day...in fact, SEO should be a main component in your overall marketing mix...Besides, the price can't be beat...After the time it takes to set it up, natural search engine traffic itself is FREE...

However, focusing ONLY on SEO is a mistake in some markets because you may be missing out on other additional profitable sources of traffic...and one of them is pay per click advertising (PPC ads are the little text ads you see lined up on the right hand of the search engine results).

So, what's the difference between SEO & PPC traffic & which one is better?

Take a look:

A. Pay per click traffic is virtually guaranteed...While you should make sure that your bid amounts actually are profitable for you, you CAN almost count on generating traffic if you bid high enough...

B. In contrast, natural traffic is free but it can disappear at any time. You are guaranteed nothing...Anyone who was around during the big "Florida" update a few years ago can tell you that. Search engines constantly change their algorithms & when they do, you can see a lot of your traffic go up in smoke.

A. PPC traffic starts IMMEDIATELY...If there are enough searchs & your bid is high enough, your traffic starts within a matter of hours in many cases...

B. However, natural search engine traffic takes time to develop. While natural search engine traffic is great because it's free, it's not immediate...Search engines seem to index content every 30 to 60 days & it can take that long or longer to see real results...

A. Pay Per Click is slightly easier to learn & manage than SEO (though it's still pretty tricky). It takes time to learn the PPC advertising systems, but you can at least figure out some of the concepts in less than a month...

B. In contrast, search engine optimization really is a "game" that should be left to professionals these days. There are people who've been doing SEO for 12+ years now & there is a very good reason why it'll cost you $10,000 to get a professional optimization done. There is an entire science to optimizing & maintaining a site...It takes years to learn SEO & it takes even longer to become at proficient at it...

Theoretically, both of these techniques should help you reach the same target market & combining these tactics can be an EXTREMELY effective way of driving traffic. While some people have sites that get 100% of their visitors from links & free search engine traffic, a mix of sources is optimal...

As mentioned above, Pay Per Click still requires a good deal of effort to master...So, here are a few things to experiment with in your PPC campaigns:

I read somewhere that we are now bombarded with something like 1500 advertising messages a day...therefore, your ads need to "break through the clutter" & get attention without being too "hypey." After you've got attention, try communicating a powerful benefit that your target market will respond to. These classic advertising principals work very well in pay per click.

Experiment with listing your price & numbers in your ad...Try listing a product number like "Model #73298," the number you have in stock like "Only 148 left," or the price itself like "$59.94." This can help weed out tire kickers because anyone clicking on the ad will have already accepted that what you sell costs money. While this may lower your click through rate, hopefully only people who are farther along the "decision process" toward making a sale will be clicking the ads...

One thing that can help lower PPC costs MASSIVELY is using other peoples' data...Keywords that don't convert or just plain cost too much can be huge cash drains (I speak from experience). While keyword research is a MASSIVE topic & it overlaps with discussions of buyer intentions & landing pages & a LOT more, you can benefit from spying on profitable campaigns by investing in 3rd party software tools...

Finally, try experimenting with a combination of these tactics & the TONS of other effective ones out there. Run split tests to see what your market really responds & get the technology that helps weed out unprofitable phrases even before you start...

Now, get going & start increasing your sales today...a world of profitable traffic awaits!