Which SEM (Search Engine Marketing) discipline is better? SEO (Search Engine Optimisation or PPC (Pay Per Click). The answer can be both. The digital marketing world is a complex and dynamic environment. A digital marketing strategy that works one months, could misfire the next, leaving you scratching your head. This makes it tricky for small business owners and big businesses to know which one to invest more in.
Let’s take a step back. What is PPC?
Well, if you carry out a search through any of the major search engines, then you will notice that in the majority of the search results you have a selection of ads on the page too. These often appear before the organic search results on the page. Basically, each time one of these ads are clicked, the advertiser has to pay money to the search engine. Advertisers are able to select the budget they want to spend each day, which makes it affordable and scalable for smaller players too.
So, why run this alongside your SEO campaign?
Well, there are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, SEO is going to take a while to kick in, even if you used the best SEO Company it may take months before you start to see any movement in your rankings, don’t worry, this is perfectly normal. If you invest in PPC at the same time, you can climb to the top of the rankings easily, which means you will be taking in business now rather than a couple of months down the line.
Of course, it isn’t just to get ranked quickly. There are plenty of other benefits that you can look forward to when you run PPC alongside SEO. A major one is that PPC will allow you to find the keywords which convert well. This will allow you to work out the various keywords that you should be targeting in your SEO campaign. If people are clicking on your advertisement and not converting, then you shouldn’t really focus your SEO efforts on getting ranked for that specific word.
Remember, you cannot possibly organically rank for every keyword in your niche through Search Engine Optimisation. This means that you could missing out on valuable, intent driven prospects. By using PPC, you can appear in the search engine results for words that you don’t have the time to focus on, or the ones that are far too competitive to get ranked naturally for.
It’s true that there is an element of chance in digital marketing strategies, but you can still increase your odds by having well thought out PPC and SEO strategies. Always keep in mind the user experience and focus on all aspects of digital marketing, not just aspects in isolation.
