Last Updated on Mar 5, 2020 by James W
If you are looking to increase your company’s online presence and increase traffic to your website, you basically have two options. SEO, or search engine optimization, and PPC, or pay per click advertising. The two strategies are proven effective in helping to boost traffic to specific websites, but that doesn’t mean that one approach isn’t better than the other for a specific company. Deciding which is right for you is a matter of determining what your company’s needs are and what kind of a budget you have to work with. Consider the following three questions when you are faced with the decision of PPC vs SEO.
How Large Is Your Budget?
For those operating on a smaller advertising budget, your best bet may be to go with high quality SEO articles to boost your website’s ratings. A good idea for online advertising is to start with a budget of about five to ten dollars a day. If you lack the money to give to online advertising methods, you won’t have much of a choice but to work with free SEO methods. Although PPC may be more effective, there is still a lag time between your investment and strong results as you analyze data and come up with the most relevant ads.
How Much Does Your Competition Spend?
After you look at your budget for advertising, consider what the average cost is for other companies in your market. Most PPC services will allow you to bid based on what you want to pay for a single keyword click. This is referred to as CPC, or cost per click. But the average CPC can be a much higher cost. If you are using a specific phrase, you may have to bid much higher in order to achieve any results. If you are a new advertiser, this will make it harder for you to make a profit off of traffic from a PPC ad. If you are a new advertiser and don’t want to invest a large sum up front, you may answer the SEO vs PPC question with SEO.
How Competitive Are Your Services In The Online Market?
The competitiveness of the search engine results pages for your keywords will also factor into your decision. To figure this out, take the time to type your keywords into the Google External Research Tool and it will give you a competition level. This tool will also give you the number of advertisers who are bidding on your keywords right along with you. In some situations, the keywords you’d like to use may be controlled mostly by stronger websites. Without a large amount of time and money, you will have a hard time overcoming these websites. If this is the case, a more efficient use of your advertising money may be a PPC model.
A Comprehensive Approach
In most situations, you won’t have to decide between one or the other. The optimal marketing plan involves the use of both PPC and SEO to boost traffic to your website. Although the investment may seem large, the return you will see will make it well worth the cost. If you have the ability to invest in both SEO and PPC, you will make your website that much more visible and your business that much more competitive.
Author Bio:
Article courtesy of Wpromote, PPC Management and Search Engine Optimization. Follow @wpromote on Twitter for more industry updates and up to date trends in Search Engine Marketing
