Brands and businesses that do digital marketing are often faced with the choice between PPC and SEO to drive online growth. While each of them undoubtedly has their own strengths, the real power and advantage comes in combining both strategies for maximum impact. Specifically, marketers and advertisers need both PPC and SEO to succeed online. You need to start exploring their unique benefits, setbacks, and the various ways that using both can attract and convert audiences.
What is PPC and SEO?
Both PPC and SEO are two key strategies when it comes to digital marketing. PPC, in particular, provides quick visibility and targeted traffic. Meanwhile, SEO helps build long-term credibility and organic reach. Both are used to increase the visibility of a brand or an advertiser and drive traffic to their websites.
PPC is an online advertising model where advertisers pay a fee each time their ad is clicked, typically displayed at the top of search engine results pages. PPC, of course, redirects traffic to the websites of the advertisers. Some of its elements include:
- Keywords: These are the words or phrases targeted to match what users are searching for.
- Ad Copy: The compelling text used in an ad to entice clicks.
- Landing Pages: This is the page a user lands on after clicking the ad, designed to encourage conversions.
- Bidding & Budget: The amount willing to be spent per click, and the total budget for the campaign.
- Targeting: This refers to specific demographics, locations, or devices the ad should reach.
On the other hand, search engine optimization (SEO), the art of boosting a website’s visibility in search engine results, relies on organic, non-paid methods to improve rankings.
Elements of SEO include:
- On-Page SEO: On-page SEO involves refining individual pages of your own website, including keywords, meta tags, and content structure.
- Off-Page SEO: Off-page SEO, on the other hand, focuses on building backlinks from other sites to increase authority and relevance.
- Technical SEO: This ensures a site’s infrastructure allows for fast loading, mobile optimization, and crawlability by search engines.
- Content: Creating high-quality, relevant, and valuable content that attracts and keeps visitors organically.
Differences between PPC and SEO
For business owners, entrepreneurs, and other individuals, it’s important to know the differences between PPC and SEO. Being able to familiarize yourself with these two strategies and being able to differentiate them will help you improve your digital marketing efforts.
One thing to remember is that their main differences lie in how traffic is generated, the time it takes to see results, and the costs involved.
- Cost
- PPC: You pay for each click, so costs are ongoing and depend on ad bids and competition. Higher competition keywords generally cost more.
- SEO: Organic clicks are “free,” though there’s an upfront investment in time, content creation, research, and optimization efforts. Once set up, SEO traffic doesn’t incur a per-click cost.
- Placement on search results page
- PPC: Ads usually appear at the top of the search results, above organic results, giving them immediate visibility but clearly marked as “Ad” or “Sponsored”.
- SEO: SEO results appear below paid ads but are more trusted by users as they’re seen as earned (organic) rather than paid.
- Traffic sustainability
- PPC: Traffic stops once the PPC campaign budget runs out. It’s a “pay-to-play” model.
- SEO: If improved well, pages can keep their rankings and continue driving traffic long-term, even after optimization efforts decrease.
- Click-through rate (CTR) and trust
- PPC: Ads have a lower CTR than organic results, as some users may avoid clicking on ads or sponsored content.
- SEO: Organic results, on the other hand, generally have a higher CTR because users often trust non-paid listings more. In 2022, organic clicks accounted for 45.1% of all research result clicks, the most out of other sources.
- Control and testing
- PPC: Provides high control over targeting, ad copy, and bidding, making it ideal for testing and quickly adjusting strategies.
- SEO: Limited direct control over rankings and takes longer to test changes, but provides more stable and sustainable traffic.
- Time to see results
- PPC: Provides immediate visibility and traffic as soon as the campaign is live. This makes it effective for the short-term goals of a business or advertiser.
- SEO: Takes longer to see results, as it involves building authority and ranking organically. It’s a long-term strategy that can take months to show significant results for the marketer.
What are the pros and cons of PPC?
Like other marketing strategies, PPC comes with its own advantages and disadvantages. Take a look at them here:
Pros of PPC
- Immediate Results: PPC provides instant visibility and traffic as soon as the campaign goes live, making it ideal for time-sensitive promotions or new product launches. This is especially beneficial as PPC traffic converts 50% better than organic site visitors.
- Precise Targeting: PPC platforms let you target specific demographics, locations, devices, and even behaviors. This precise targeting ensures your ads reach the right audience.
- Control Over Budget and Bids: You can set a maximum cost-per-click (CPC) bid, daily budget, and overall campaign budget, allowing flexibility in managing costs.
- Measurable and Trackable: With PPC, you can easily track metrics like impressions, clicks, conversions, and ROI, giving a clear picture of campaign performance.
- A/B Testing: PPC ads can be tested and refined quickly. Marketers can run A/B tests on ad copy, visuals, and keywords to improve click-through rates and conversions.
- High Visibility on SERPs: PPC ads appear at the top of search results, often above organic listings. This increases visibility and attracts potential customers who may not scroll further.
Cons of PPC
- Costly Over Time: Since PPC operates on a per-click basis, it can become costly, especially in competitive industries where CPC bids are high.
- Temporary Traffic: Once the budget is exhausted or the campaign is paused, traffic from PPC stops at once, unlike SEO, which can provide ongoing traffic.
- Click Fraud Risk: Competitors or bots may click on ads maliciously, leading to wasted budget. Most ad platforms, however, have safeguards to detect and mitigate click fraud.
- Complex Management: Effective PPC campaigns require regular monitoring and optimization of bids, keywords, and ad copy. This can be resource-intensive, which will be challenging for small teams and solo entrepreneurs.
- Lower Trust Level: Some users skip ads and prefer organic results, seeing them as more credible, which can reduce the click-through rate of PPC ads.
- Dependent on Platform Policies: PPC campaigns must adhere to the policies of the ad platforms (like Google Ads). This means your ads could be suspended or disapproved for policy violations, sometimes even with minor issues.
What are the pros and cons of SEO?
The benefits and drawbacks of SEO should also be considered when using SEO practices for digital marketing efforts. Here’s a breakdown of the pros and cons of SEO that brands and marketers should consider:
Pros of SEO
- Long-Term Traffic: Once a page is improved and ranks well, it can drive consistent, long-term traffic without ongoing investment, unlike PPC, which stops when ad spend stops.
- Cost-Effective: While SEO requires upfront investment in time and resources, organic clicks are free over the long term, making it more cost-effective than paid advertising.
- Higher Click-Through Rates (CTR): Users generally trust organic results more than paid ads, which can lead to higher CTRs, especially if the site ranks on the first page. According to Forbes, page one results have an average click-through rate of 27.6%, which means more users are more likely to see and click on your page.
- Increases Brand Credibility: High rankings give a feeling of authority and credibility, as users often see top-ranking sites as trustworthy and authoritative. Not only that, but a well-structured website or well-written web content can impress and convince the audience to act.
- Broad Reach: SEO helps capture a wide range of search queries, including informational, navigational, and transactional searches. This enables the brand’s website to attract diverse audiences.
- Improved User Experience: Good SEO practices improve website usability, mobile-friendliness, and loading speed. All of which enhances the user experience and can increase engagement.
Cons of SEO
- SEO is a long-term play: Don’t expect overnight success. Especially in competitive niches, it may take weeks or months to see significant results.
- Algorithm Changes: Search engines often update their algorithms, which can affect rankings and require ongoing adjustments to support or improve position.
- Requires Continuous Effort: While less intensive than PPC in terms of ongoing spend, SEO requires continuous optimization, content creation, and link-building to still be competitive, especially with algorithm changes and high competition.
- Unpredictable Rankings: SEO results aren’t guaranteed. Achieving top rankings depends on many factors and can be challenging, especially for new or small websites.
- High Competition: For highly competitive keywords, it can be difficult to rank well without extensive resources and time invested in SEO.
- Limited Control Over Appearance: Unlike PPC ads, you can’t fully control how search engines display your site’s snippets, as Google may change the meta title or description based on the query.
Benefits of combining PPC with SEO
As mentioned above, a brand needs both of these to succeed in their online presence. Combining PPC and SEO can create a powerful digital marketing strategy that uses the strengths of both approaches. Together, they can have a significant impact that will boost a brand. Here are some of its main benefits.
- Increased Visibility and Dominance on SERPs – When a website appears in both paid and organic results, it occupies more real estate on the search results page (SERP), which increases visibility and brand presence.
- Data Sharing and Optimization – PPC and SEO can provide valuable data to improve both campaigns. For instance, high-performing PPC keywords can guide SEO content strategies, helping find which keywords to target organically. Insights from organic search queries can improve PPC targeting and ad copy by revealing keywords with high search volume and low competition.
- Enhanced Click-Through-Rate (CTR) and Conversions – PPC ads can lead users to specific landing pages, while SEO content can educate users and warm them up for conversion, effectively moving them through the marketing funnel.
- Quick Testing and Validation for SEO – PPC allows for fast A/B testing of keywords, ad copy, and landing pages, which can provide insights that help SEO. Testing keywords in PPC can reveal the most valuable keywords for SEO, helping avoid long-term investments in keywords that may not perform well.
- Better Brand Recall and Awareness – When users see your brand in both organic and paid listings, it reinforces brand recall. Even if users don’t click at once, they are more likely to remember the brand and visit later.
- Higher Conversion Potential – SEO content can capture users in the research stage, while PPC can capture users with higher buying intent. This offers a seamless way to reach audiences at different stages in the buying journey.
- Greater Resilience to Algorithm Changes – SEO traffic can fluctuate due to search algorithm updates, while PPC traffic stays stable as long as you’re paying for ads. Combining both mitigates the risk of sudden traffic drops due to changes in one strategy.
How PPC can boost SEO performance
While PPC and SEO work independently, a well-managed PPC campaign can indirectly boost SEO performance in several ways. This includes:
- Keyword data for SEO targeting
- Improved click-through-rates (CTR)
- Enhanced brand awareness and recall
- Content and conversion rate testing
- Driving traffic to boost engagement
- Building backlinks with promoted content
Tracking the impact of PPC and SEO campaigns together
Tracking the combined impact of PPC and SEO campaigns requires a unified approach. This will help evaluate both individual and synergistic effects on traffic, conversions, and engagement. Here’s an overview of how you can track the impact of both campaigns together:
- Set Up Conversion Tracking in Analytics Platforms
Use tools like Google Analytics to track conversions and goal completions (e.g., purchases, sign-ups) from both PPC and SEO sources. This allows you to see how each channel contributes to conversions, as well as their combined impact.
You can also set up attribution modeling to see the role of each channel along the user journey. Multi-channel attribution models like first-click or last-click attribution can highlight PPC or SEO’s role in conversions.
- Analyze Assisted Conversions
In Google Analytics, assisted conversions show how different channels interact to drive conversions. If PPC drives initial awareness and SEO captures later conversions, assisted conversions will show the combined impact.
- Measure Organic CTR with and without PPC Ads
Use Google Search Console to track organic click-through rates (CTR) and average position for targeted keywords with and without active PPC campaigns. Analyze whether running PPC ads affects organic CTR or visibility.
- Monitor Keyword-Level Performance
Track performance of targeted keywords in both PPC and SEO to measure the impact on rankings, traffic, and conversions. PPC can offer keyword insights (e.g., high-converting terms) that help SEO.
- Evaluate Brand Lift and Awareness Metrics
Use brand awareness and brand lift studies to track if combined PPC and SEO efforts increase overall brand recognition. Look for rises in branded searches (tracked in Google Search Console) to measure SEO’s organic brand impact as influenced by PPC.
You can also track direct traffic trends, which can reflect brand familiarity driven by repeated exposure to PPC ads that lead to later direct site visits.
- Use UTM Parameters and Campaign Tags
Tag PPC campaigns with UTM parameters to segment traffic and conversions by source, medium, campaign, and keyword. This allows precise tracking of PPC traffic, conversions, and any later organic engagement or conversions from the same users.
- Compare Engagement Metrics for SEO and PPC Visitors
Analyze user behavior on key engagement metrics—bounce rate, pages per session, session duration—for PPC and SEO traffic. By segmenting PPC and SEO traffic in Google Analytics, you can find how each channel’s visitors interact with the site.
Tracking repeat visits from PPC users who later return organically can show how PPC encourages continued engagement, potentially driving improved SEO performance.
- Run Cross-Channel Attribution Reports
Use cross-channel reports in Google Analytics or other tools to track the role of PPC and SEO in users’ journeys across devices and time. Reports like Path Length and Time Lag reveal how PPC and SEO work together over time to drive conversions.
At the end of the day, PPC can provide valuable data and immediate traffic, further enhancing SEO strategies. PPC and SEO together can also boost brand recall and credibility. No matter what angle you look at, these two are necessary for your online marketing strategies to succeed.
Leverage the power of both PPC and SEO for a complete digital strategy now. Get reliable digital marketing services and contact Twin Rams Media to refine your approach!
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
References:
https://www.semrush.com/blog/seo-vs-ppc/
https://mailchimp.com/resources/seo-vs-ppc/
https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/software/seo-statistics/