SEO vs PPC - What Are the Differences?
 Search
Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) are
the two leading techniques in the Search Engine Marketing
(SEM) toolkit. While both are powerful strategies, SEO
earns substantially better ROI than PPC does. Numerous
reliable studies demonstrate this too. But that does
not mean PPC is not highly useful, or even preferable
for some sites and companies.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Search engine optimisation will no doubt provide the
lowest-cost traffic to your site but results generally
take months to show up.
Listing achieved through an SEO campaign gives a psychological
advantage over sponsored links. When a person sees the
sponsored listings, he knows that the link is there
because the company paid money to the search engine
to advertise there. But when he sees a site within the
normal search result page he thinks it is because of
the quality of the site. This gives a psychological
branding advantage to the company over the sponsored
listings.
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Can be thought of as an "infrastructure"
investment for your site |
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Has the highest conversion rate and best ROI
of any online marketing method |
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Highly ranked sites are perceived
as being more credible |
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Over the long-term is much cheaper than pay per click.
It has been proven that you get around 30 times
more traffic in SEO links than in sponsored links
by investing the same amount. |
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Produces long-lasting results - good optimisation
can last for a year or more |
Pay Per Click (PPC)
Sponsored links and pay per click programmes (the green
boxes on the right-hand side of Google) work on the
bidding model. You select a keyword and bid on it. The
highest bidder gets the ad displayed on the top. Each
time a user clicks on the advertisement, the search
engine will charge the bid amount. While initially it
is a good idea to go in for a pay per click program
for immediate exposure, this works out to be expensive in
the long term.
A pay per click campaign is the fastest way to drive
traffic to your site and is often used to get traffic
while the results of your SEO efforts kick in. The downside
of PPC marketing is that you can burn through a lot
of cash in a hurry if you don't know what you are doing.
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Is a regular, recurring
expense. Traffic stops when you stop paying. |
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You can get visitor traffic in
as little as an hour after setup. |
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Solution for exposure on competitive
search terms where you can't get a top ranking. |
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Great for testing new product ideas
or the effectiveness of ads quickly. |
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Great to target a large number
of low-bid-cost (niche) keywords. |
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Perfect interim measure until your
SEO results show up in the search engines. |
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Excellent for seasonal sales or
other time-dependent promotions. |
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Easy to measure and track performance
and effectiveness. |
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Very time-intensive to monitor
in-house. |
SEO vs. PPC
Most search engine positions are NOT for sale. About
60% of the top search engines' screen is devoted to
non-paid, "organic" listings - which means
60% of your search engine visibility depends on SEO,
not PPC or other paid placement. On average, about 70%
of clicks from search engines come from SEO. PPC campaigns
usually require nearly as much labour to set up as SEO
requires, in addition to the click charges you pay after
set up is complete. PPC requires ongoing management,
whereas SEO is done once and performs superbly in perpetuity
(with regular monitoring and possible fine-tuning).
PPC prices are constantly increasing, often beyond positive
ROI for your most important phrases, while SEO listings
are free. Finally, PPC is increasingly beset by varieties
of "click fraud".
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