SEO or PPC: Which Search Engine Marketing Strategy Should You Choose?

Generating traffic to your website and converting it into leads and sales is the main aim of any digital marketer. As such, the success of your campaign depends on the amount and quality of traffic it can get to your pages. 

93% of all online experiences start with a search engine, so marketing on these channels is a good place to start with your digital campaigns. There are two main options for promoting your website on a search engine:

1. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
2. Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)

Though their end goal may be the same, SEO and PPC are different marketing channels that require their own set of marketing techniques and methodologies.

To succeed with either method, it’s important to know the strengths and limitations of each so that you can work them to their greatest potential for your business. The most successful marketers will master both channels, using them together to generate results for their business.  In fact, marketers who use a combination of organic SEO techniques and PPC ads see an average of 25% more clicks and 27% more profits compared to those who only use a single technique.

When To Use SEO

Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO, is the process of optimising your website to get organic (unpaid) traffic from the search engine results pages (SERPs).

SEO is very important for online businesses: 61% of marketers say improving SEO and growing their organic presence is their top inbound marketing priority.  With an effective SEO strategy, you’ll see your website rank improve, which means more visitors will be able to find your website pages in search results. 

The following are some of the reasons to use SEO techniques over PPC:

• You Need Consistent Results: Once it’s working, SEO typically sees long-term success. It can take a significant amount of time (usually a few months) to get your website to the first page of search engine results for the keywords and phrases that you’re targeting. However, once you get there your website should see significant, sustained traffic improvements. In addition, if you maintain your SEO campaign and continue the work to maintain and improve results, you can stay on the top pages for a long time and see long-term benefits.
• You Want to Create an Authority Website: An authority website is the go-to website for a particular niche. It is well known in its niche as a thought leader in providing relevant, up to date and accurate information. Once established, an authority website can generate direct traffic through its recognised brand name and URL. The best way to create an authority website is to drive quality traffic and slowly build your reputation in the desired market. This can be done through a comprehensive content marketing and SEO strategy.
• You Want a User-Friendly Website: SEO isn’t just about technical improvements that boost search rankings. Today, search engines take cues from how people interact with websites when identifying how they should be ranked. Well-structured, clean, user-friendly websites encourage a visitor to stay longer, which decreases the bounce rate and increases page views. As such, user experience is not only good for visitors but also search engines.

When To Use PPC? 

Pay per click, or PPC, is a model of digital marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. Essentially, PPC is a way of buying visits to your site, rather than trying to “earn” those visits organically through SEO.

Paid search ads increase brand awareness by 80%. They can also be used to drive more qualified visitors to a website, who are further down the buyer funnel and, as such, more likely to convert.

The following are some of the reasons to consider investing in a PPC campaign:

• You Need Immediate Results: PPC campaigns deliver results fast. This is because the minute your PPC campaign is approved by the search engine you choose, your ads will immediately appear on the SERPs, driving traffic instantaneously. As such, PPC works well with product launches, special offers, seasonal promotions and event-focused marketing. It is also ideal for marketing products, services or offers that are time sensitive as it takes a lot less time to get results than an SEO campaign.
• You Want to Appear at the Top of the SERP: PPC results are displayed above the organic search results on a search engine results page. This prominent position means that on average, 41% of clicks go to the top 3 paid ads on the search results page. This means you’re more likely to get significantly more traffic to your website form an audience that is interested in the products and services that you offer.

While the above describes some situations where you might use one of these channels over the other, using them together to compliment each other can create a killer online marketing strategy.

Make sure your business stays ahead of the game this year by focusing on SEO and/or PPC. We provide local SEO Auckland, and content marketing Auckland. If you’re looking for a comprehensive strategy that takes care of all your digital channels, including social media marketing NZ, Google shopping ads, Bing ads and Google display network ads, we are here to help you out. Contact us and find out how you can improve your conversions!