Choose Your Own Adventure: PPC or SEO?

Scenario: Your company is in a do-or-die situation. If it doesn’t have a web presence and can’t gain any kind of visibility, the possibility of your company going under increases significantly. You have been chosen to set off on a journey to save the company and are given three tools that will help you along your road to success: a large budget, access to PPC & SEO experts and a sword (just kidding…bad joke). There will be obstacles along the way: money constraints, content issues, fire breathing dragons and competition. The power is yours! Make the right decisions and you can be a hero. Make the wrong decisions and your actions could lead to your company's demise…(insert picture of ominous sky with dramatic music in background).

You type your competitors name in Google and see they pop up immediately, both in organic search and in the ads at the top of the page. They obviously have money to do PPC and have a strong SEO strategy. Should you choose:

A) PPC
B) SEO
C) Both

A) If you choose PPC, you are paying-per-click to get into the top displayed ads. Pros are you will see results relatively quickly (usually within a week or two), which will increase your exposure and traffic. Keyword research will allow you to test which words work so you can adjust your budget accordingly. BUT, you must consider your budget when running a PPC campaign for it could get expensive. Are you bidding for each keyword in order to maintain a top position on the page? If so, you have to increase your bid to match your competitors to get ahead in ranking.  This can add up, especially if you are on a tight budget. If you decide at anytime to stop PPC, the traffic you were receiving as a result of people clicking on ads to get to your site will decrease exponentially.  No ads means no clicks.

B) If you choose SEO, you aren’t paying-per-click. Pros are its cost-effective and your traffic will increase over time as you work on optimizing your website. Focusing on your site’s content will help you in the long run, ranking you higher in search results, and ultimately increasing brand awareness and traffic as you maintain a consistent web presence. However, most of your budget will be spent on developing your website and writing content. Make sure you conduct some keyword research to help determine the best keywords to incorporate into your content or you risk the chance of not being found by the clients and prospects you want to target. Well-written content using high-performance keywords is essential to your success. This requires not only good research, but a good writer that is experienced in web copy.

C) If you choose both, you have made a wise decision. Incorporating both PPC and SEO provides the necessary tools for website optimization success. Data gathered from your PPC Campaign can act as a solid foundation for SEO strategy. Once you know what keywords perform best, you can focus on incorporating these keywords into website content, improving your position on search result pages and saving time and energy. Keeping content new and relevant will also help your SEO strategy.
How will you use this knowledge to your benefit on your quest to save your company?
A)   Weigh the pros and cons of each. Choose PPC over SEO, or vice versa and you may risk losing some of the budget that could help later on with website optimization.

B)   Ignore this information, attempt to find another strategy to gain web visibility and hope you don’t become fodder for the forest beasts.

C)   Re-read this blog written by an exceptionally wise woman (word says she works at Moiré). Use both PPC & SEO together to get the most value for your budget and website and become the hero your company always knew you could be.


THIS ARTICLE CREDITS TO:

moiremarketing.com
Image Credits: titandigital.com.au