Search Engine Marketing: SEO vs PPC a debate written numerous times in the past, but here’s the explanation in English:
Many marketers online will stay true to either SEO or PPC strategies online. Which side are you on? At first blush, the thought of paying someone to visit your site would take the shirt right off your back as we speak. Why would anyone pay for someone to click on your site right??
“SEO is free so you really have nothing to lose…….”
Whoever agreed to that statement above has A LOT to learn about the advantages and disadvantages of SEO vs. PPC. Before I get into the differences between the two and why you should become a hybrid marketer, nothing makes it easier to understand things than analogies!! 
Last week I attended The Internet Retailer Convention Expo in Chicago and a speaker mentioned this great analogy that would hopefully clear things up between the rhyme and reason of SEO and PPC.
SEO/PPC Analogy
Imagine yourself blindfolded and were given a handful of darts. Your job is to throw these darts at the target. Now, if you’re lucky one of your darts will hit near the bullseye and many won’t even hit cork!
Each dart represents a keyword you’re trying to rank for, so this means that some of your keywords will get high rankings and some won’t. Heck, you might realize that some of these keywords aren’t even worth ranking for anymore.
Now imagine a sniper that can control what he/she can hit without ever having to miss a shot. Think of this sniper strategy as your PPC ad campaign. You can build an ad copy with a keyword phrase you wish to rank for.
Analyze the conversion, and make a decision whether it’s worth your time to work your SEO strategy around that keyword. Get it?
So what should you do? BOTH!
First get a good keyword research tool to create a list of keyword phrases you would like to rank high for in the SERPs. Remember to always use the exact match option for building your PPC keyword list. Build a CPC campaign for each individual keyword and see if there are people clicking on those ads. Next, trash the low click-through keyword phrases and start working your SEO strategy with your site.
Reasons why you shouldn’t do any SEO until you find your keywords worth optimizing for is because SEO takes awhile to increase your organic rankings. So why do all that work and find out that the keyword phrase was a dud?
So tell me, are you applying both strategies in your marketing plan?
image by: Bogdan Suditu
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{ 36 comments… read them below or add one }
The right choice for website depends on particular needs and desires. Most websites benefit most from utilizing a combination of these two approaches. Using PPC marketing can help quickly identify your best performing keywords, while implementing a longer-term SEO strategy will increase chances of ranking well in the organic listings to get long term good traffic.
Twitter: jacknguyencom
June 17, 2010 at 9:42 am
Well said! Thanks for your input!
I read nice article, i really enjoyed this article.
Thanx
Twitter: mothersland
June 17, 2010 at 6:17 am
I quite agree with you, it is better to find keywords phrase that worth optimizing before taken on SEO.
Twitter: jacknguyencom
June 17, 2010 at 9:41 am
Yup, MANY people are doing it the wrong way….
Twitter: AndBreak
June 17, 2010 at 9:19 am
I believe that both is important. For one of my mini sites I used both strategies. I used PPC to drive traffic to it while also focusing on SEO to get good ranking on search engines.
Nice article Jack. How is everything going man?
Twitter: jacknguyencom
June 17, 2010 at 9:40 am
Hey Julius – Busy busy. You know how it is. How are things with you man?
Twitter: AndBreak
June 20, 2010 at 6:36 am
Everythings alright. I tried sending you a message but I got a message back that it could not be delivered. I just use the email address you used before. You might want to check that. I think it said something like your inbox is too full or something along that line.
Everything is alright otherwise. Still trying to generate a healthy income through mini sites but it hasnt worked out yet. Lets chat sometime.
Twitter: jacknguyencom
June 21, 2010 at 12:29 am
Really? Thanks for the heads up man….I’ll take a look at my inbox. Thnx
Yeah we’ll get together real soon.
Use PPC while waiting for SEO to bolster is always a common use. Once organic results are in place i would only keep PPC if the conversion ratio is providing enough value to cover campaign costs.
Twitter: jacknguyencom
June 17, 2010 at 11:22 pm
Right John, if you really want to reap the benefits of both strategies, have a PPC below your organic rankings if your organic rankings are high, and vice versa. Why? Because the more real estate you hold above the fold, the more exposure your site or blog is going to get through brand awareness and click-throughs.
more real estate. great way to put it, grab as much of that screen as possible!
Twitter: jacknguyencom
June 22, 2010 at 10:35 pm
That’s right John! More real estate = more eyeballs
I almost think if you go the ppc route you almost need it to be an animated ad. Many people are blind to the adsense text ads now, and those who aren’t seem to treat them as spam, I know I do.
One thing I like to do that you didn’t mention is what I like to refer to as “Real World Marketing” or marketing of your website outside of the www. I’ve found using the right picture from my website, or my bumber stickers, with my logo on it brings in a lot of traffic (non blogger traffic too) for little money.
Twitter: jacknguyencom
June 21, 2010 at 12:24 am
You’re right man, offline marketing can still be effective if done correctly!
I think PPC and SEO come together. Those high ranking websites uses both strategy to get high traffic and good rankings. SEO may not be that expensive if you know how to do it but when outsourcing such tasks it could end up less beneficial than PPC.
Twitter: jacknguyencom
June 21, 2010 at 12:28 am
Agree with you Mark! As long as you make good use of your free time from outsourcing, I think thats the best thing you can do to grow your site.
Twitter: tvtopten
June 20, 2010 at 1:07 pm
Agree, if someone thinks “SEO is Free” they are nuts. SEO efforts are very time and effort consuming, there is nothing easy of free about it (unless your time is not worth anything).
Mixing SEO and PPC is probably the best strategy. Especially if you can rank on the first page for any term plus rank on this term in the advertisement spots. Having 2 links to your site will greatly increase your chances of getting noticed and getting hits.
Good article. thanks for sharing.
Jen
Twitter: jacknguyencom
June 21, 2010 at 12:30 am
Well said Jenny!
Thanks for commenting!
I’ve never really delved into PPC, I guess because in part my risk tolerance is quite low. I feel that most Higher risk Entrepreneurs won’t mind going into PPC, but thats how I would weight the too… Once is for less riskier people.. and the other is for more riskier people.
Twitter: jacknguyencom
June 22, 2010 at 10:39 pm
Your point is well taken….many people don’t feel like spending in the beginning, which is totally fine. Run your business organically and when money starts coming in, work your ppc strategy into your marketing plan.
Rightly said Jack, become a hybrid marketer, a perfect combination of PPC and SEO will really work . finding out the right keywords using PPC and then using such keywords which can work in SEO is a good idea, because SEO is a time consuming process, its better to be sure of what is going to work and what will not.
Twitter: jacknguyencom
June 22, 2010 at 10:41 pm
Hey Kavin – You summed it up well! Finding the right set of keywords in the beginning might cost a little, but how much time and effort are you saving by doing your homework first?
Twitter: JohnMossBlog
June 22, 2010 at 10:52 am
Good post, Jack.
I agree that marketers need to focus on both PPC and SEO tactics to increase traffic and conversions. Many times it seems some marketers get caught up in defending their particular ideology that they stop looking at the bigger picture.
Twitter: jacknguyencom
June 22, 2010 at 10:45 pm
Thanks John! Those who are one-sided haven’t been successful in on of the methods. So it takes time to get them to a point where they have a different mindset for ppc and seo.
Hi,
Thanks for this article, it was a pleasure to read it. I learned some little things. Just to share my experience. In my case, I use PPC only when I need to increase my traffic and/or my rank about a specific keyword and when I didn’t succeed previously with “classic” SEO.
Twitter: jacknguyencom
June 22, 2010 at 10:46 pm
Thanks for the comment Benjy. Glad you found this helpful!
SEO is by far better and cheaper, but PPC is quicker and can make you more if you know what you’re doing.
Twitter: jacknguyencom
June 22, 2010 at 10:50 pm
SEO is definately cheaper, but I’m not sure if it’s better. But I do agree with your last statement!
Great article! I have this argument (conversation) with my husband all of the time, so it was fun to see your take on it.
BTW, I have learned not to do keyword research at 3am after a few glasses of wine – can’t remember what I found or what I wrote the next day!
A.
Twitter: pravin sharma
July 26, 2010 at 10:09 pm
Google Analytics relies on javascript to measure your traffic. The Analytics JS libraries are large and slow to load, often causing the user to leave the page prior to Analytics registering the hit. Also Analytics have no secondary means of measurement, so browsers with JS disabled (corporate environments) don’t register either.
Twitter: pravin sharma
July 30, 2010 at 4:18 am
Your traffic is probably going to vary, but a great landing page and some A/B Testing would be helpful I think if you are doing PPC..
Both PPC and SEO are useful to create a well-rounded online marketing strategy. A personalized strategy along with the use of Google Analytics will help to create the specialized marketing needed for any company.
Rachel@ Interactive Marketing Agency´s last blog ..How to Use Google Analytics
I never used PPC yet, i prefer to use the simple SEO, it is hard and long work but i prfer to do it because it is free instead of ppc where we always should pay and sometimes the traffic isn’t targeted.
Twitter: apartrental.com
August 31, 2010 at 7:37 pm
great site. I think the right choice for your site depends on needs and desires. I think the PPC and SEO together. Most sites are most likely to benefit from the use of a combination of the two methods is very good. Using PPC marketing can help to quickly identify your best performing keywords, while implementing a long-term SEO strategy will increase the chance of ranking well in organic listings to be long good communication. but I want to say is when we find out the keywords using PPC and then use keywords that might work in SEO is a good idea, because SEO is a time consuming process , its better to be sure about what will work and what will not. Thanks to your great article has provided our readers useful information about this topic, I bookmark your website
I tried PPC once and contrary to popular belief it was hard to get everything set up correctly. Google has so many restrictions now.
SEO is not built up overnight it is built through constant work.
So in the end it is either a quick solution in PPC or a long one in SEO
Chris@Gold Miners´s last blog ..Investing In Gold During A Recession
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