SEO or PPC: should you choose between the two?

In today's world, online presence and visibility are essential for businesses to remain competitive. However, it is not easy to navigate the opportunities offered by online search engines, and the question may arise as to which tools are more appropriate. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) are both useful tools to increase website traffic and improve conversions. In this article, we review the features of SEO and PPC, as well as their advantages and disadvantages. We'll look at which is the better choice, if you really have to choose at all!

Brands have recognised that they can most effectively attract clicks to their landing page if they are ranked as high as possible in search engine results. In Google's case, for example, there are two ways to get these rankings. One is SEO, which is all about providing relevant, useful, keyword-optimised content and ensuring the best user experience from a technological point of view, and the other is PPC, which is also about optimising for keywords, bidding for and essentially 'buying' the ad space at the top and bottom of Google's search results.

Both ways are possible, there is no one right way, because it all depends on the goal and the circumstances. In order to get a little closer to the question, we will now explain what SEO and PPC are and what their advantages and disadvantages are!

What is SEO?

With SEO (Search Engine Optimization), we can occupy the section below PPC ads with persistent and consistent work. The idea is to optimise the content of the website for a specific keyword in an attempt to move up the search engine results list.

Search engine marketing can be a long-term and cost-effective solution. It is essential to be aware that search engine optimisation is not just about producing the right content, it also includes technical SEO, i.e. optimising the technical properties of the site, and link building. The latter is off-page SEO, i.e. SEO carried out off the page, while the first two are on-page SEO, carried out on the page in question.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of SEO?

Advantages

It attracts real customers

The advantage of SEO is that it has a good chance of bringing real customers to the site. Users coming from Google are looking for something, a product, answers. The key is that they find what they are looking for on our site.

It is a long-term solution

It takes consistent and persistent work to get to the top. But the good news is that if you put in the effort or hire a specialist company, sooner or later you will reap the rewards.

It is low cost

SEO does its job even if you're not running any ads, so overall it's more cost-effective than advertising.

Disadvantages

It is time-consuming

The biggest disadvantage of SEO is that it can take months, sometimes years, to achieve the right results. It requires a conscious build-up, which not everyone can wait for.

It requires specialised knowledge

Good SEO requires expertise. In fact, very often it takes more than one person. You also need to be familiar with the IT background and the rules for producing excellent content.

The ranking is constantly changing

Google's algorithm is constantly changing, which means that your carefully produced text can be moved down the rankings at any time.

What is PPC?

PPC, or Pay Per Click, is a form of advertising where you only pay if your ad is clicked. It is therefore easy to set a fixed budget for each month, which the advertising system cannot exceed, so that advertising expenditure can be planned. This marketing tool gives you the opportunity to appear at the top of Google's search results, it all depends on how much money you want to spend on advertising.

PPC ads are organised into PPC campaigns. They deliver messages to a specific target audience for a set period of time. One of the most important metrics for PPC is the CTR, the Click Through Rate, which shows how many people clicked through from the ad. CPC, on the other hand, tells you what the cost per click is.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of PPC?

Advantages

It brings immediate results

The huge advantage of PPC is that it can produce results immediately. You don't have to wait weeks or months for the clicks to come in, the ad to go live and everything is up and running. That's why in some situations it can't be avoided, for example when launching a new webshop or when advertising an event or promotion.

It reaches many people

Just like SEO, PPC can reach a lot of people, but with the latter you can do it much more effectively. A running ad can be seen by thousands of people, and if the PPC ad is set up well, the clicks will be there.

Multiple forms of advertising

Brands have a lot of freedom in the form of advertising they want to choose. For Google Ads and Facebook PPC ads, for example, there are also image, video and text ads.

Provides good targeting

Both SEO and PPC rely on the keywords that customers use in their searches. This in itself helps narrow the audience, but with PPC you can refine the targeting with additional settings. The better the targeting, the more likely the message will reach people who are truly relevant.

Disadvantages

You have to pay for every click

This is an advantage, as you have to pay for the clicks, but a disadvantage in that the clicks may not actually result in a purchase, but ‘only’ traffic. Of course, this is not bad, but if something goes wrong in the process, many people might click, but nobody buys.

Learning can be expensive

PPC is typically a form of advertising that can be very costly if the right hands are not in control of the ad setup. This is why it's not worth experimenting, it's more expedient to hire a team of experts.

Growth depends on the budget

This is true for all advertising up to a certain level, but even more so here. If we don't spend on advertising, it doesn't drive traffic.

Which one to choose?

The most fortunate situation is when you don't have to choose, but SEM is a combination of PPC and SEO, meaning that both are given a place in your marketing strategy. PPC can produce spectacular results quickly and is excellent for driving targeted traffic, but it comes at a hefty price. It is therefore advisable to combine it with SEO, which helps you build for the long term. Once SEO content is on the site, it will continue to "do its thing" silently for years to come. In a short period of time, it will recoup the cost of producing the content, and from then on, you're driving organic traffic for virtually free. Paid advertising is more targeted, more effective in some ways, but you have to remember that if you don't pay, it doesn't work.

It's easy to see that the best way to make digital marketing really effective is to combine the two.

Why Meraki is the best choice?

Whether it's PPC or SEO, if you want effective work and demonstrable results, it's best to hire an expert company. At Meraki Marketing we are masters of both, find out how we work and contact us to put together the best PPC and SEO strategy for you.