📈 Marketing Strategies PPC vs. SEO: Which is Better

[Nomad]

Well, you will obviously say, SEO is better because SEO builds organic traffic and you do not have to spend money again and again for SEO. However, do you realize how hard it is to get ranked high on search engines for high traffic keywords? Therefore, for a lot of people PPC, especially through Search Engine Marketing, comes as a better solution. There are two benefits, one, you get organic paid traffic, and two, you are likely to have a high conversion (because when people click your ads, they do it because they want to try it).

For some people, choosing between Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a common dilemma, but why should you limit to one when you can harness the power of both?

 

[Jason]

SEO is based on a probability you will get traffic, PPC is not.

 

[Arantor]

Which is better, car or bicycle? They’re not really in competition and it’s perfectly common to use both together to achieve outcomes…

 

[Jason]

Which is better, car or bicycle? They’re not really in competition and it’s perfectly common to use both together to achieve outcomes…

SEO is based on probability but it can be a very high probability which is the same as it simply being "sure to happen".

 

[Arantor]

I, uh... what?

 

[Jason]

I think good SEO these days is going to cost. It's not like in 2011, where as I have told stories about before, I was able to get a few hundred USD a month for nothing (just mild amount of work).

 

[Arantor]

Ah so that's why my company is pulling back on the PPC advertising because it's just not working as well as the SEO work we've done ourselves on our website.

 

[Jason]

Ah so that's why my company is pulling back on the PPC advertising because it's just not working as well as the SEO work we've done ourselves on our website.

It might be tough to find people to link to, but if you can, then power to you.

 

[Arantor]

Well, running a successful web design agency, having good case studies, well crafted content tends to do a lot of good favours.

Having gated resources can help, as can a good marketing campaign strategy on LinkedIn, running in-person events and so on tends to help too.

It's so much more than just 'finding people to link to', and in our case, getting people to our website is about convincing them we're capable of handling 5-6 figure projects, for a team of 6.

 

[Nomad]

Yeah, SEO is based on probability. You implement SEO strategies and expect to rank high and get organic traffic. However, PPC is spending money to get in front of the proper audience.

 

[Arantor]

So what if it is? It doesn’t change that you just can’t go “which is better, A or B” because they’re fundamentally incomparable.

Even if you qualify it as “which is better for driving traffic to my site” that actually doesn’t help because PPC will pretty much guarantee *some* traffic (vs SEO which won’t guarantee anything) but so what if everyone arrives and just bounces because they didn’t find what they were looking for?

Even if you *then* qualify it (somehow) as “which is better for driving converting traffic to my site” it still does not entirely help because lead qualifying doesn’t really work like that unless you’re hands-off SaaS and it’s *purely* a numbers game - which for almost everyone here, it *isn’t* like that.

Part of an effective SEO strategy necessarily is “what are people looking for” and “how do I structure what I have to meet what they’re looking for”. Which is then what you focus PPC on as a customer acquisition method, assuming that’s even your goal.

tl:dr; they’re complementary above all else.