Every time your audience clicks your link, you pay. Additionally, competitive keywords and industries tend to have higher bids, which increases costs even more. For worthwhile results, you will need to invest significantly in a PPC campaign.
Bidding wars. You may get in bidding wars with competitors, which can rapidly increase costs in both the short and long term.
Your visibility depends on your funds. If your funds dry up, your ads are immediately removed from SERPs, which can result in huge traffic losses.
Sponsored ads can age. In competitive spaces, PPC ads can all start to look the same—or they just get old—which can cause ad fatigue in audiences. To stay effective, PPC ads require regular refreshing and attention.
SEO vs. PPC: Which Is Better for You?
Choosing between SEO and PPC depends on many factors such as your business goals, budget, business/team size and more. Keep in mind that you aren’t limited to just one or the other—you can effectively use PPC and SEO together. Consider the following scenarios to help you decide which marketing strategy is better for you and your unique needs.
Use SEO if:
You have a small budget.
You want long-term, consistent results.
You create informational content.
You are trying to build brand authority for a niche product or subject.
You want to increase the value of your website in order to sell it.
Use PPC if:
You need results as quickly as possible.
You are hosting an event or using a special one-time offer to increase traffic.
You sell a unique product and wish to promote it to increase visibility.
You want to maximize conversions.
You want to target a very specific audience.
How to use SEO and PPC together:
In order to increase the visibility of high-quality content, use promotional PPC ads to boost SEO rankings faster.
If some of your audience organically visits your content but doesn’t convert, all is not lost! You can retarget these users through PPC ads to increase your chances of bringing them back and converting them.
Increase your reputation and authority by having both organic and paid visibility.
Use PPC ads to test keyword strategies before you implement them in SEO.
Bottom Line
SEO and PPC offer distinctly different marketing approaches in order to achieve more visibility, traffic and conversions in your business’s web pages. While SEO costs much less than PPC on paper—and the organic traffic it creates is more suited to long-term, consistent growth—it can take a long time to build momentum. It also tends to be time-consuming and may require hiring expertise to be effective. PPC, on the other hand, can put your page on top of the SERPs within a day, but it has upfront costs that may dig significantly into your marketing budget.
Neither of these approaches are inherently better than the other, rather they both have use cases depending on the needs and goals of a particular business. It’s also often a great idea to use SEO and PPC together as they are able to complement each other.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) Is SEO or PPC more expensive?
Effective SEO takes time, expertise and money; however, it tends to not be as expensive as PPC. With PPC advertising, businesses bid to have their ads listed in SERPs and—if they win the bid—are charged that bid amount each time a user clicks their link. Businesses bidding on competitive keywords can find themselves in bidding wars with competitors, which can increase costs significantly. It’s difficult to quantify the expense of hiring an experienced SEO expert, for example, or the amount of time spent on gearing effective SEO practices, but in terms of upfront costs, PPC is typically more expensive.
Should SEO and PPC be used together?
You can use SEO and PPC together for a well-rounded marketing strategy or individually to great effect just as well. The needs and goals of the business determine which approach to take. Companies that want to use SEO and PPC in tandem will need the expertise required to successfully implement SEO strategies as well as a decent marketing budget to fund PPC ad campaigns.
Why would I prefer PPC over SEO?
You would likely prefer PPC over SEO because PPC can create results—such as increased visibility and traffic—much faster than SEO. Implementing an SEO strategy is time-consuming and requires continuous effort to keep your pages optimized. Furthermore, even after successfully implementing your SEO, it can take months or longer for your content to gain visibility, let alone the top spot in SERPs. With PPC, you can pay to have your page displayed in the prime top position almost immediately.