Search Engine Marketing (SEM) will continue to be a crucial part of any marketing plan, at least for the foreseeable future as search engines continue to be a major source of traffic for websites. This means that if you’re not on the search engine marketing boat…
- You’re Going to Be Left Behind.
If you aren’t using marketing strategies on search engines, you’re missing out on a huge source of traffic that could be coming to your site and helping you generate revenue.
That’s why this article is here for you. There are two main types of search engine marketing:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC)
There are completely different strategies and pros/cons associated with both, so choosing which one you will use in your marketing strategy is an incredibly crucial decision. However, both will have the effect of driving more people to click on your links and increase your audience reach. So, both are winning strategies!
- Where Is, The Post Going to Be Located?
One of the first things you should know before choosing between SEO and PPC for your marketing strategy is that the location of your link on the search engine will be different.
If you go for PPC, your site is going to be on either along the top or side of the search results. For SEO, it’ll be among the organic search results in the middle of the page, below and beside the PPC links.
Both of these have their advantages and disadvantages. Some users see the PPC posts as pure advertising that isn’t relevant to their searching and some see them as the primary search results. This is just something to note as you make your decision.
- How Much Is It Going to Cost?
As the name implies, you will have to pay for PPC. And as the name also implies, you will pay per click your link receives and not just the views. This means that your investment will actually mean something and you will have traffic driven to your site.
On the other hand, money-wise, SEO is free. However, there is a ton of work and education needed on your side to get your properly optimized. If you want to focus on SEO, you will need to educate yourself on SEO and how to do it properly. There’s a ton of competition out there and it’s not easy to generate traffic right away with SEO alone.
- What Amount of Traffic Will Be Driven to My Site?
This completely depends on the keywords you choose, their popularity, and the competition you are facing. If you are really good at SEO and can get your site up in the rankings, you will probably rake in more traffic than with PPC.
However, if you find it incredibly difficult to get up in the rankings with SEO alone because any number of factors, you may find more traffic coming by paying for your clicks.
- Is the Traffic Going to Convert?
The traffic generated through PPC advertising is going to convert at a higher pace than those people who visit the site through SEO. When your PPC ad shows up in a search (if it is properly targeted), visitors will be more likely to stay on your site and be converted to a customer or audience member. That’s because their search will be directly related to the ad that you paid for and they will find what they’re looking for easier and faster.
- How User-Friendly and Easy Is It?
The simple answer to this is:
They’re both difficult to master.
Both PPC and SEO are advanced topics that take many months of education and training to properly master. So, don’t expect that either will be easy.
So, which should you choose? That depends on any number of things, from your budget to the time you want to dedicate to learning the processes. If you have a team, work with them to determine what you want your marketing strategy to look like and how SEO or PPC could fit into it.
