Regarding search engine marketing for your website, two strategies stand out: SEO and PPC. You have heard about them and have wondered which one brings the most results. While both serve the same purpose – get leads to your website – they are distinct in operation and functionality.
We will look at them shortly:
Search engine optimization (SEO) is optimizing your website pages to rank for specific queries on search engine result pages (SERPs). Also known as organic SEO, it includes making sure Google’s bots crawl through your web pages to understand what it’s all about. After such information has been collected, Google then saves it to an index, pending when people search for that content.
The more your website ranks higher on SERPs, the greater the chances of receiving more clicks, leads, and conversions for your business. According to a report, 64% of SEO PPC specialists actively incorporate SEO in their digital marketing efforts.
On the other hand, PPC search marketing involves running ads on search engines to rank for specific queries when they’re searched. These ads are run on Google Ads to drive leads, traffic, and conversions from their potential audience.
PPC is a broad concept that shouldn’t be limited to websites. Digital marketers use PPC to drive ads to their intended audience on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and others. Paid search marketing spending clocked at $144.8 billion in 2021 compared to 2020s $58 billion. This is a testament to how beneficial it is to businesses.
You might wonder about the better digital strategy between paid search engine vs SEO. This article will explore the difference between pay per click and search engine marketing.
SEO vs PPC
Pay-per-click advertising and search engine optimization are based on the same focus: to drive visitors to websites. Both of them take a different approach to achieving that. While cannabis dispensary SEO is implemented to rank organically on SERPs, PPC requires you to pay to rank for the same queries.
How does this play out? We discuss it below:
Ranking
How is ranking different when comparing PPC vs SEO? Paid search marketing appears at the top of search engine results pages when specific keywords are searched. Thus, business owners opting for paid SEO get the first shot at grabbing visitors and customers.
Paying for Google Ads to rank your website higher than others doesn’t end there. You’d also have to consider some factors, including the targeted keywords, your web copy, keywords in your landing page, and other factors.
On the other hand, organic SEO appears in the middle of the SERPs, just below paid ads. Ranking higher through organic keywords requires you to optimize your website for targeted keywords, review your meta titles and descriptions, and structure and flow of your web content.
Conversion Rates
Organic vs PPC conversion rates are integral to your digital marketing SEO PPC campaigns. Your conversion data is proof of whether your search engine marketing efforts are working or not. When it comes to paid SEO, optimized and targeted keywords will likely get more conversions.
One of the reasons for this is that PPC ads appear at the top of SERPs for targeted keywords. When users see what they want from the meta title and description, they’d click on it and visit the site.
Thus, PPC campaigns gain more conversions for targeted keywords. On the other hand, SEO campaigns can also rank higher for targeted keywords. However, they will appear just below PPC campaigns.
When users go through the PPC links and are unsatisfied with what they find, they could opt for the next best thing – links from organic search.
Both of these campaigns gain visibility but paid SEO receives more conversions – as long as the ads keep running.
Traffic
When it comes to website traffic, which strategy is better is between SEO and PPC? Organic SEO is bound to receive more website traffic compared to PPC campaigns. This is because if you optimize your web pages for targeted keywords, they will rank amongst the top 5 positions on SERPs.
Each of these positions gets an equal shot at receiving website traffic, depending on the content displayed on their meta title and description. So, you have a regular flow of website visitors as long as your page is properly ranked on SERPs.
Here’s the tricky aspect: PPC search marketing also gets an equal shot at receiving website traffic. What is PPC traffic? It is simply the traffic you generate from your PPC campaigns. For this to work, you must fund your Google Ads account to run those ads. When the ads have exhausted the funds in the account, the ads will automatically be removed.
If you’re considering longevity, organic SEO is best. However, not everyone gets to rank for targeted keywords. With a web analytics tool like Google Search Console or Google Analytics, you can monitor your website traffic.
Cost
Cost is an essential aspect of search engine marketing. From their mere definitions, SEO is free while PPC is bought. But it is not completely conclusive.
Implementing SEO to rank for specific keywords is an arduous task. You’d need a lot of time to conduct keyword research, on-page optimization, earn backlinks from other websites, and build a compelling SEO silo website architecture to stand a chance.
There are zero shortcuts to SEO for businesses. You have to do the work; if you don’t know how you’d need to hire an SEO PPC specialist to take care of it.
On the other hand, PPC costs depend on a host of factors. Some factors include the popularity of the targeted keywords, the number of websites bidding for the keywords, and the ad positions for the same keywords.
You’d most likely spend more with PPC than SEO.
Ease of Use
To effectively use PPC vs content marketing, you need to know how they work. SEO takes a lot of time to get started and optimize your web pages for excellent results. Depending on your strategy, it might take months of consistent tweaking to start receiving visitors, leads, and conversions. You can hire an SEO expert to take care of it for your website.
It’s different with PPC. All you need to do is understand how Google Adwords work, bid for the targeted keywords, and optimize your web copy to rank on SERPs. When you consider SEO vs paid ads in terms of ease of use, PPC is miles ahead.
Organic Keywords vs Paid Keywords
PPC and SEO are different, and so are the keywords when they appear on SERPs. We will look at the difference between SEO organic vs paid keywords.
● Position. While paid keywords appear at the top of SERPs, organic keywords are just below paid search.
● Clicks. Due to their rankings on SERPs, paid SEO gets more clicks than organic keywords.
● Effectiveness. Paid search is instant as long as you bid and pay for the keywords. The organic search takes a lot of time and effort to rank for targeted keywords.
● Longevity. Organic SEO is long-lasting as long as you constantly conduct on-page optimization for all your web pages. PPC campaigns last as much as your budget.
● Execution. While PPC is faster to execute, organic SEO takes longer to pull off.
Now, you know the difference between organic SEO and PPC keywords.
Does PPC Help SEO
Beyond instant digital marketing success, PPC goes a long way to help SEO campaigns. For instance, when you subscribe to Adwords, you will see valuable keywords driving traffic and conversion to websites and those that aren’t. Thus, you know what your customers are searching for and optimize your website for those keywords.
PPC also drives brand awareness to your website. When people land on your website and see engaging content, they might subscribe to your newsletters and pay for products and services. They will most likely engage with your content – even if you don’t run PPC ads.
PPC also helps you to gain local leads. For instance, many people conduct ‘near me’ queries on search engines to locate the nearest business to patronize. You can incorporate this in your PPC campaigns to drive the most local leads to your business.
Conclusion
PPC and SEO are crucial to search engine marketing. They are beneficial in gathering visibility, improving your organic content, and optimizing your landing pages. Now you know the difference between SEO and PPC and how to effectively use them.
