SEO or PPC? Why Choose?

Debate over whether Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) or Pay-Per-Click (PPC) is better for a website has always been popular among advertisers and website owners. The debate largely stems from the fact that these are widely considered to be the two most effective, and certainly the two most popular, forms of advertising. However, while each have their own unique benefit there is certainly no reason why a website can´t benefit from both. In fact, for a lot of websites, combining the timely results of PPC with the potentially cheaper results of SEO in a powerful marketing strategy.

PPC Advertising For Your Website

PPC is also often referred to as SEM or Search Engine Marketing. PPC advertisements are predominantly the sponsored links that can be seen on search engine result pages and partner websites. The PPC advertising model is based on a bidding system whereby advertisers place a bid that is the highest amount they are willing to pay. Each time a person clicks on that ad, the user must pay an amended bid price.

It is not uncommon for new websites to use PPC advertising while they wait for their SEO efforts to come to fruition. However, PPC has a lot more to offer than this. Careful management ensures that your advertising efforts never need be wasteful. Optimisation lets you track the amount you pay per click and with good campaign management you can be absolutely certain that you don´t overspend on advertising.

SEO And Your Site

SEO, or Search Engine Optimisation, has proven popular with many Webmasters because it has proven to be one of the more cost effective methods of online advertising. The single biggest problem, however, is that it can take weeks or even months for SEO efforts to come into fruition. Google is believed to "store" new websites in a sandbox, meaning that they will not gain the full benefits of SEO for a number of months. The full extent of the sandbox is not truly known by anybody outside of the Google engineering team.

It is often said that a major advantage with SEO is that it only takes a real push in the beginning in order to garner your site with high listings. With some niche keywords it may be possible to hit the top spot and remain there with little effort, but a good SEO campaign for competitive and targeted keywords requires ongoing work. One of the biggest contributing factors to your site´s performance is the number of inbound links that point to your site. Other websites vying for the same top position as you will inevitably be collecting more and more links, so it is imperative that you do the same.

SEO Or PPC?

PPC and SEO are by no means mutually exclusive. The most effective marketing campaigns take advantage of various advertising streams. This diversity in any portfolio offers security against any unforeseen circumstances. If the cost per PPC click became unbearable, or if Google was suddenly to stop advertising for certain industries, then your search engine traffic would be able to pick up the slack. Similarly, if your search engine ranking drops from the top three results to near obscurity then your PPC clicks can be increased to improve your traffic levels.

Website owners and advertisers don´t need to pick between SEO or PPC. Both are effective forms of advertising that can be implemented on many different sites. Both have their advantages and both provide different visitors to a website. As such, the complement one another perfectly, to create a generous and steady stream of traffic to any website. The important thing is to ensure that each of the advertising campaigns you undertake for a site proves profitable and advantageous.