The age old internet marketing debate, what is better and for which reasons, PPC or SEO for internet marketing?

Pay-per-click, most commonly referring to Google AdWords, is a advertising system where the advertiser pays the publisher each time a browser/visitor clicks through the ad and onto your landing page.  This is done by a system of auctions, where competing advertisers choose maximum bid amounts for each keyword term or phrase.  Then you can manage your entire PPC account budget, keyword list, and more easily.

AdWords Chart Big Variances

SEO is search engine optimization, which is a method that takes anywhere from 3-12 months to see effect.  SEO requires copy writing, link building, social media, and a whole lot more, this does not happen overnight, it takes days and days to create and syndicate all these various tactics.  But, SEO can provide a company with first page rankings.  And, first page rankings means hundreds or even thousands of visitors per day coming in from the search engines.  Depending on a companies keywords, they may get more or less.  It all just depends on the search volume per term(s).

PPC has more placements on search results page than the SEO rankings

PPC: Pros and Cons

PPC Pros:

• Can be implemented immediately
• Guaranteed first page placement IF highest bidder
• Reach thousands of people in any keyword you want
• Massive keyword lists available
• Fully customizable ads

PPC Cons:

• Can be very expensive
• If you aren’t careful, your clicks will be poorly chosen and won’t convert on your offers, sales, and products
• You can lose all of your money very quickly
• Constant maintenance is required, bids and cost-per-click(CPC) changes all the time
• Constantly need to watch and fight with competitors

SEO: Pros and Cons

SEO Pros:

• Very cost effective
• Can reach massive organic traffic
• Connect with people through social media
• High conversion rates with specific keywords, content, and distribution
• Google is massive market, can get tons of long-tail keywords as well

SEO Cons:

• Takes time, may take 3-12months to see good results
• Also must fight competition, can take more effort
• May need to help write, develop your website, etc
• Content is needed, unlike PPC where you just need landing pages

There’s a quick and easy list to see some of the basic differences with PPC and SEO.  Really a lot of this depends on what kind of budget your working with.  If possible, you should be employing both marketing strategies and getting massive amounts of conversions through the internet.  But if that is not the case, you should test the PPC market with some promotion codes from Google or your hosting company and see what the possibilitiies are.  If the competition is spending massive amounts of PPC campaign money each month than you may not want to compete there.

SEO has a much higher return on investment (ROI) than PPC

SEO may seem like the long route to take to reach organic traffic that can offer conversions, but you’ve got to look at the long-term possibilities.  Paying an SEO company to build up your rankings and online presence can bring thousands of visitors over the next year.  Steadily you will become a competitive force and authority, which brings in high amounts of traffic with little expenses.  SEO has a much higher return on investment than PPC.