SEO Or PPC Campaign?

Companies across the world realise the importance of getting their website found on search engines. With over 80% of users finding their desired website through a search engine.

This brings about the question of what is the best way to feature prominently in search results. The two different options best suited for most companies now are either a long-winded SEO (search engine optimisation) campaign or the instant, yet potentially expensive PPC (pay per click) campaign. Both options have benefits and drawbacks and are listed underneath.

The difference between SEO and PPC can be summarised using an analogy:

Imagine trying to get your body in a good condition. You could go down the surgery route (PPC) – Liposuction, botox etc. These results will be instant but come with a cost. An alternative would be to get fit (SEO). Start running, do push-ups etc. The results would take longer to reach, but they are long-lasting and in some cases, no money is needed.

SEO Benefits & Drawbacks

Many content management systems, such as WordPress or Joomla have quite strong SEO features built into the functionality straight away, meaning that you can have a reasonable search engine presence without much extra effort once search engines have looked over your website.

An SEO campaign can also be free, or at least inexpensive if you can take the time to follow tutorials and learn how to optimise your website for search engines yourself.

Alternatively, contracting an agency on a monthly basis to provide SEO services can be much more beneficial to your SEO efforts in the long term, and also takes the hassle and potentially steep learning curve out of optimising your website.

An SEO campaign can be long lasting, and should always be in your thoughts as you develop your website. There is constant work needed for an SEO campaign to be successful, as once you get your website to a search engine position that you are happy with, it then takes maintenance to keep it competitive in that position.

Another benefit to an SEO campaign is the likelihood of an end visitor clicking on your website. A recent article by Moz detailed that clicks on organic search results were 8.5X more likely than clicks on paid search results.

However, what many people don’t realise is the length of time search engines may take to start ranking your website.

It can take up to six weeks for your website to make the search results at all, never mind page one! When a website first goes live, many times the business will be a bit dismayed at it not being found in search results and begin to think that the SEO that has been performed on the website hasn’t worked.

PPC Benefits & Drawbacks

The true value of PPC is the ease of use and scale-ability of the campaign. Results can be seen within an hour of publishing.

PPC campaigns can be as large and expansive as your budget will allow, meaning that you can be at the top of search results for as many different keywords or phrases as you like, this can get expensive depending on the auction price of the words that are targeted.

The conversion rates for PPC campaigns is actually higher than that of organic results due to the design of the landing pages in a PPC campaign, as these pages should be compatible with the keywords that are targeted.

A PPC system such as Adwords is a powerful tool that can be figured out how to use quite simply. However, there are many features that are not well known that can save mass amounts of budget spend.

When Interact-IT first takes control of an Adwords campaign that a customer has done themselves, within 10 minutes we find many areas that we have to fix to improve the overall campaign and save money on the budget. Depending on how long the campaign has run for, the amount of wasted budget can run into thousands of pounds. Agencies such as ours have trained staff that know PPC systems inside and out, and we will always recommend having an agency analyse or set up your account for you due to the potential to waste budget spend.

Conclusion

In our opinion, SEO is a must! It is longer lasting and will get you more customers at a much cheaper price long term.

PPC has its place in the market though. It is a fantastic tool for businesses just starting off or raising brand awareness. And the speed at which your site or product can be featured in the top search results positions should not be overlooked.

Talk To Us About SEO Or PPC

Please use the contact form underneath to get in touch with us about SEO or Adwords (PPC).

Alternatively, contact us on 01257 429217 or visit our office at:
46 Halliwell Street, Chorley, Lancashire, PR7 2AL