PPC and SEO are two of the most popular internet marketing devices of recent years. There is often confusion between the two however as both are based around search engines. Read on to understand the differences between them.
Search Engine Optimisation (or SEO as it is more commonly known) is where site ranking in search engines is improve through the use of keywords, related to your services or products. The task of SEO is to improve what is referred to as “organic rankings”. This means improving natural and non-paid for engine listings. On the other hand, PPC (or Pay Per Click), is the process of getting an advertisement on the results pages of Google or other search engines. PPC are the “sponsored listings” that appear on the right hand side, and the top, of Google’s natural results.
SEO is usually achieved by paying an SEO company to carry out an SEO campaign (paid on a monthly basis). When traffic to your website increases there will be no extra charge! SEO is a long term job which increases the authority of your website over time. When SEO work stops your results will not disappear instantly, although efforts should be maintained as over time other search results will take the place of your site as your results slide down the rankings.
Pay per click offers instant results. You pay Google for advertisements and they are instantly listed. By the same token, however, as soon as you stop paying, the adverts disappear. You are not building up any long lasting authority or value in your domain. However, the ads do appear instantly and are therefore well suited to short term sales, for example. With PPC you pay up to your maximum bid every single time someone clicks on one of your ads, irrespective of whether they go on to make a purchase or submit an enquiry or not. This means the costs can soon add up and in areas where clicks are in the region of 40 each, this can be unsustainable.
If you are not sure which technique is best for you web marketing needs you should approach a SEO or PPC provider and they will talk you through some other advantages of each process.
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