SEO vs PPC-the differences

PPC, or Pay Per Click, is the second aspect of search engines you need to know about. It is closely allied to SEO in some ways, in that both are interested in ranking on the first page of results, and both use keywords to drive this traffic.

The difference is as the name suggests—Pay Per Click means you have to pay every time someone clicks on the ad you are running.

The good news is, you can get a lot of traffic really fast with this method. The bad news is you can also lose a lot of cash really fast with PPC.

The plus side is that you can test marketing messages really quickly by running an ad in front of a few hundred people in a matter of days to see if you have a winner. You can test and track every aspect of the campaign if you set it up correctly.  This is far more efficient in terms of time and cost than anything you could achieve with a print-based marketing campaign.

The plus side is also that SEO and PPC reinforce each other. In other words, if people see the ads on the side, they might be a bit reluctant to click, but if they see both a high placement for the PPC ad, and one for the SERP, they are 70% more likely to click and even take action (either give their email address, or actually buy something).

But let’s be realistic about this here and now.  Online advertising and marketing budgets have also soared since PPC was first started by Google in about 2000.  Relative to these, the investment required for getting traffic through search engines is much lower.

However, as search engines have billions of pages indexed in English alone, let alone any other language, it is important to have a proper approach to using SEO effectively.

Why do Pay Per Click?

In a nutshell, PPC (pay-per-click) advertising will help you with yout internet marketing in the following ways:

1. PPC will deliver DIRECT and EXACT match search results for your offer

2. You will be able to start generating traffic immediately.

3. You will be able to start generating a database of potential leads immediately if you have an email capture and autoresponder system in place (such as Aweber) and you have an effective and appropriate call to action.

4. The ability to start generating customers and clients immediately if you have good sales copy on a rapid conversion landing page.

5. The ability to fine-tune your marketing efforts through the use of split testing and tracking thanks to the Pay Per Click data. If Items 3 and 4 are not working, you need to re-think your message.  All Pay Per Click systems have detailed data on impressions, click through rates, and can help you determine cost per click and return on investment in terms of lead generation or actual sales at the site.

You can then use this information to continue with PPC, or even improve any and all of your print marketing material.