SEO vs PPC: Which Offers The Best Value?

8 February 2016, posted in News

seo-ppc

When it comes to marketing a business or website online, there are so many different options to choose from. Speak to any internet marketing expert and they’ll bombard you with information about the different ways you can go about marketing your business. Two terms you’ll commonly hear in the world of internet marketing are PPC and SEO. These two marketing techniques use two very different methods to achieve the same thing.

You’re probably wondering which of the two is right for you and your business. In this article we’ll take a look at each of these marketing techniques in detail and compare them.

What is SEO?

The easiest marketing technique to first take a look at is SEO, which stands for search engine optimisation. Google is probably the most well-known search engine and in order for your business to be successful online, you’ll want it to rank as highly in Google’s search listing results as possible. The idea behind SEO is to use a series of techniques to rank your website as highly as possible.

This isn’t achieved by paying money to the search engine in question, but instead optimising your website’s content and data to be most suited to what the search engine is looking for.

SEO specialists optimise your website for search engines by using a series of special techniques – from utilising meta tags to appropriately naming images, URLs and optimising your content – the list goes on. If the search engine believes that your website is relevant to a particular search term, it will rank it highly.

What is PPC?

The idea behind SEO is to bring as much traffic towards your website as possible and the goal of PPC is basically the same thing. However, it goes about it in a different way.

PPC stands for “Pay per Click”, which as opposed to SEO, is all about paying a search engine to display your listing. Search engines like Google have space reserved on their search listings page for businesses that have paid to be there. The basic idea behind this model is that every time a user clicks on one of these sponsored links, you the business owner will have to pay. The amount depends on your industry but can range from a few pence to many pounds.

PPC is designed to be a cheap and effective way of ranking highly on search engines without the need for complex search engine optimisation.

What is the difference between SEO and PPC?

Choosing between SEO and PPC is largely dependent on the size of your budget. It’s also dependent on your general marketing strategy.

SEO is designed to cement your long term position in a search engine’s listings. Whilst it will cost more in the short term, it’s designed so that your website will still rank highly once you’ve moved on from SEO. Whilst it may not initially result in a lot of new customers, it will build your brand over time and leave you future proof.

On the other hand, PPC largely focuses on the short term. Paying to have your link listed at the top of Google’s results is cheap and quick. There’s no need to invest in long term search engine optimisation and you’ll start getting visitors to your website right away. That being said, once you’ve burnt through your budget, you’ll be left with no long term visitor flow.

In conclusion, whilst SEO focuses on the long term expansion of your business, PPC is designed to give you a quick boost of custom. Which one you choose largely depends on your overall marketing strategy and where your business is heading.

At Baqqa Creative we specialise in SEO & PPC alongside other digital marketing techniques.  Not sure what to choose?  Give us a call: 01722 671 971

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