Most small businesses don’t need to choose between SEO and PPC, they just need to work out which to prioritise first. That will depend on your resources, your aims and the time you have available to set up and monitor each.
1. What each one actually does
Pay-per-click advertising, through channels such as Google Ads, is immediately visible to potential customers online. They enable instant visibility, on the pages of search results, on conditions that you have previously stipulated. Online advertising such as Google Ads is costly per click but enables instant online advertising on specific terms searched for online. The problem is that, as soon as you stop paying for online advertising, then your adverts will cease to be visible online, for search terms on specific terms searched for online, regardless of the value of those terms to your business online.
2. Why PPC usually comes first for a brand-new site
By the time your organic ranking history starts to kick in, you’ll have probably spent a few months establishing your online presence. This means you’ll have had the chance to test out various search terms, and gained some valuable insight into your target market. This data can then be used to inform and optimise your SEO strategy, to maximise return on investment.
3. Why SEO is the better long-term investment
The fact remains, however, that for businesses looking to remain on the scene for years to come, the bulk of long-term value will reside in their Search Engine Optimisation work. Of course, SEO isn’t free, and requires continued effort in the form of quality content and the maintenance of a technically sound website, but that is a far cry from the click by click charges that apply to PPC work.
4. The real answer for most small businesses
Although it can seem like Search Marketing (by which I mean PPC, SEO, etc) is something that you turn on and off like a tap, it actually is something that has to be left on for a while. As such, running PPC and SEO together is not to turn on two different ways of bringing visitors to your website – it’s to bring visitors to your website as quickly as possible and then to build a long-term solution for visitors to your website.
5. When budget genuinely forces a choice
In extreme circumstances, budget could constrain a business to concentrate on one or other channel. Here’s the honest assessment of each scenario. Note, though, that each scenario will only apply to a minority of businesses. (As an aside, I feel that the sheer number of consultants who suggest PPC as the primary channel for businesses within weeks of launch (or indeed for brand new sites within months of launch) warrants detailed coverage elsewhere.)
6. What doesn’t make sense
Running PPC ads indefinitely without ever optimising for search engine optimisation (SEO) would mean that you’d have to continuously pay for each ad click to receive visibility for your website. However, for many search terms, your website could naturally rank for these terms in the organic results without having to constantly pay for each ad click. However, ignoring PPC ads altogether for a newly developed website would mean that for the first few months, your website would not be receiving as much traffic and exposure as it could be, until your SEO efforts start to develop and result in increased traffic to your newly developed website.
Remember, neither PPC or SEO can replace a good website and a good business that people want to find. They are merely two channels through which to drive traffic to your site.