Businesses today understand the importance of online marketing and how it can help attract new site visitors and conversions. In fact, almost 85% of people actually end up on websites that they have found through search engines. This means your business needs to have a well-established presence on search engines on the first page of results if you want to reach your target audience.

Two of the most common ways to help establish top rankings is to use Pay Per Click (PPC) and SEO (Search Engine Optimization). When used correctly, both can deliver high placed rankings with the major search engines. However, there are key differences on the approaches used to achieve the results, as well as variances in the costs.

Pay Per Click Advantages

• With PPC, you can achieve faster results and top-of-the-page rankings quickly.
• PPC targeted ads are displayed above or along the side of organic search results.
• Users are almost two times more likely to convert from an ad, compared to SEO.
• The ability to customize the landing pages for each of your ads.
• You can use multiple ad keywords and ads to target different audiences.
• You can have multiple ads running simultaneously.

Pay Per Click Disadvantages

• PPC campaigns cost more than SEO marketing efforts.
• PPC ads have to be constantly monitored and reviewed to determine performance.
• Ads may need to be altered, adjusted, or removed if they are not performing well.
• There is a cost to have the ad displayed and a cost for each time the ad is clicked on, even if the user back-clicks to the search results page.

SEO Advantages

• SEO delivers organic results.
• SEO costs less than PPC campaigns.
• SEO has a better long-term return on investment (ROI).
• Users are almost ten times more likely to click on an organic search result than a PPC ad.
• Users tend to focus more on the organic results than the ads at the top or side of the page.
• Users trust organic results as being more reliable, compared to ads.

SEO Disadvantages

• SEO cannot deliver page one rankings overnight.
• SEO is an ongoing process and efforts have to be adjusted on a regular basis to match the latest Google SEO guidelines.
• Organic rankings can change for various reasons, so even if you are in the top five today, you need to review reports and conduct website audits regularly to maintain current rankings.

As you can see there are benefits and drawbacks to both PPC and SEO efforts. If you want quick results, PPC is better to use in the short-term in cases where:

• You recently launched a new website.
• You have never done any prior online marketing.
• You are not ranking in organic results.

On the other hand, SEO is better when you want long-term results. Ideally, businesses should use a balance of both PPC and SEO for maximum site exposure in search results. To learn more about PPC and SEO or assistance in launching an online marketing strategy,contact the SEO and PPC experts at Logik Digital by phoning 1-866-307-0086 today!