Spend enough time in digital marketing and you’ll notice there’s a big gap between SEO and PPC among online marketers. Each side has its own die-hard followers who insist their domain is the future of digital marketing and the only solution worth your money. But those who get caught up in the hullabaloo of SEO vs PPC wars often miss the big picture. When it comes to waging war between SEO and PPC, advocates often forget a few key truths. Simply put, SEO cannot replace PPC – and vice versa. Each domain serves a particular purpose, contributing to the larger goal of improving your brand and increasing conversions. SEO is geared for improving your organic search results and establishing your business’s online presence. We do this by optimising your website and making it the best, most relevant, and most user-friendly result for customers who are searching Google for your company or product/service. But SEO often takes time to get results. Without PPC, you may not get a chance to attract your customers if your website is new or low-ranking. PPC, on the other hand, is designed for driving heavily targeted traffic and visitors to your website. But without proper SEO work on your website, those leads may not convert to actual sales. (Hardly anyone trusts a poorly designed website or a company whose website they can’t find in search results.) So don’t think of SEO and PPC as substitutes for the other. They’re two completely different parts in the wheel of digital marketing. Not only are SEO and PPC completely different from each other – but, in many cases, they complement each other and improve your digital marketing campaign. Here’s how – There’s one good reason why pure SEO or pure PPC is not necessarily the best for every business: Every business is different. Saying that SEO or PPC alone is all that every business needs is not just incorrect, it can be misleading. Businesses in different industries and product categories require different approaches to online marketing. Companies that sell specialist products or home services, for example, may benefit from the lead generation muscle of PPC. Businesses in competitive service industries and niche markets, on the other hand, may get more conversions from the established online presence that SEO builds. Now more than ever, you need to know who your audience is and how they search. What works for one business may not work for another, so you need to choose what’s right for yours. Interestingly, what we’ve seen has worked best for many clients is not a case of either-or, but rather and. The benefits of running SEO and PPC simultaneously are many (see Number 2), and we’ve seen clients get great results and better conversions from having both in play. The question then is, how do you split your budget between both? That’s a question that you’ll need to answer with your digital marketing team. If you have a limited online marketing budget (a.k.a. most businesses), it helps to consider the following factors – Need help with your digital marketing strategy? Have a chat with our team to find out what’s best for your online marketing campaign.1. SEO and PPC are not interchangeable
2. They work well together
3. It’s not the same for everyone
Both is Often Better