SEO and PPC are two important internet marketing techniques for getting visitor traffic & exposure for your online business. The goals of both, Paid Search & Search Engine Optimization are same; the difference lies in the methods and the techniques to generate more traffic to your website.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO):
Search engine optimization helps to generate traffic from the organic, free, or natural listings on search engines including Google, Yahoo and Bing. A Search Engine considers the relevancy to users and on that basis your website and other content such as videos, images, or local listings are publicized and ranked.
SEO process involve dedicated off-page and on-page techniques to help search engines find and rank your site higher organically (not paid) in response to a search query.
On Page Optimization:
1. Adherence to Web Design Standards (W3C)
2. Original Content
3. Keyword placement and keyword density.
4. Meta tags & Header tags
Off Page Optimization:
1. Organic Link Building with subject relevancy
2. Directory Submissions
3. Social Media outreach
4. Press Releases
In contrast a PPC campaign (Paid-Per-Click), involve monetary commitment from the advertiser. In effect you have to pay for advertising on sites and search engines. An advertiser has to pay for every click based on the bid price the search engine gives to any particular keyword. The most common and widely accepted paid search engine services include Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing and Bing Adcenter.
SEO vs. PPC:
There are both PROS and CONS for adopting either of services to generate traffic to your website. There are some key factors through which you will be able to decide whether PPC marketing or the SEO methods or both are better for getting more relevant visitors to your website. Here is an overview:
SEO – Pros & Cons:
Pros:
• It’s cost-effective. You don’t have to pay the search engine to be “advertised”.
• Studies reveal that most visitors click on the natural listings rather than sponsored listings thereby generating high quality traffic.
• Search engine optimization helps you to gain visibility in every search engine whether it’s a Google, Bing, Yahoo or any other.
• It can be combined with video and images to get even more exposure in search engine listings
Cons:
• The biggest challenge of SEO is competition with over 8 billion pages in the search engine index.
• Search engines constantly work on to improve the quality of their searches, which in turn can affect the results on SERP rankings; you have to constantly work on your SEO to adhere to norms.
• SEO takes longer time from one month to 6 months or more to see results.
PPC Pros & Cons:
Pros:
• PPC is very fast to implement and changes are visible quickly in search engines.
• Your listing on top pages on search engines is a guaranteed.
• You don’t require any changes to your website while adopting this type of internet marketing
• Search engine algorithms don’t affect it.
Cons:
• It can be expensive. More the visits via PPC campaigning to your website more you have to pay.
• If somehow you will be unable to pay for paid search campaigning any month, your traffic drops altogether.
• Most of the searchers don’t click on paid ads.
SEO and PPC don’t share same methods for traffic generation, so you need to find which approach would be better for your business to achieve your long term goals.