A common question you may have when starting to rev up your marketing campaign is what is right for my site? Everyone has a certain budget to work within and the main question today that will be discussed is if you have to choose one or the other, which one is right?
With Pay Per Click (PPC), the basics are simple, you pay for the traffic you receive, once you stop paying, the traffic stops and that’s it. This is great for new (or existing) sites that need additional traffic for that month, but if you are not doing any SEO with your site, you have to keep on paying for the traffic.
With SEO, the results are not instant, and it can take months for results to show. The good news is, that the time and money you invest into SEO will help you in the long run. All that time working on building your site, gaining new links and ongoing optimization will continue to benefit your site.
Ideally, you would want a dual approach combining both SEO and PPC especially with new websites. It takes time for new websites to get off the ground, which is the same for a new business that opens up in town. It takes time to get the business established, and with the world of search marketing, using PPC can help bring in traffic while your SEO continues to build. As time goes on, you can lower the cash you are throwing into PPC as you start to gain traffic from the SEO side.
If you had to choose one. Your best bet would be SEO as the money you invest will continue to benefit you as time goes on. With PPC, once you stop pay, that’s it, the traffic stops, and if you want to rank in the organic search results, you still need the time and money to invest on the SEO portion of your marketing campaign.
Gerard Manning is the owner of Manning Search Marketing and has been working in the SEO industry since 2000. Originally started with Enquiro Search Solutions (now known as Mediative). Was previously a Research Assistant on Inside the Mind of the Searcher that was released in 2005.