Search Engine Optimization
Having a great website is the first step to online marketing, but isn’t the most important.
A great website doesn’t guarantee that you will receive visitors, but SEO (Search Engine Optimization) does.
A website without SEO, is like placing your billboard in the desert; no one will see it. If your website is ranking high for popular terms, you will receive site visitors.
Traffic is the middle man between brand awareness and sales.
Once consumers become aware of your brand you will receive more visitors to your website and the more visitors you receive, the higher the chances you will make a sale.
SEO and PPC have certain traits in common. They both capitalize on the broad reach of search engines. They both involve using keywords and phrases to drive targeted traffic. They can both be used by all types of companies, big and small, but the similarities end there.
Benefits: 3 Areas Where SEO Beats PPC
When considering the SEO versus PPC question, you must weigh the pros and cons on both sides of the fence. Pay per click has the advantage of speed. You could start seeing click-through traffic within minutes of launching a PPC campaign. But search engine optimization has even more advantages. Here are the top three advantages of SEO over PPC:
Pay per click comes on like a light switch. You’ll get clicks and visitors as soon as you activate the campaign. It goes off like a switch too, the minute you stop paying for those clicks.
Search engine optimization works differently. It offers lasting benefits. To improve your organic search engine rankings, you need to develop keyword-rich content and a strong linking profile. It may take a while to accomplish these things, but the results outlast the efforts. So in the long run, SEO is a better value than PPC.
With pay per click, you get the visitors you pay for. With search engine optimization, you get the visitors you earn. This is a key distinction between paid and organic search marketing. With SEO, you attract visitors by developing a high-quality website that meets their needs in some way. It takes work to accomplish such a goal. At first glance, this may seem like a disadvantage. But it’s actually a good thing. SEO forces you to do things you should be doing anyway (things like content development, website usability and online networking). Your website will come out of it better than when you started.
Nobody can deny the extensive reach of social media. The $16 billion IPO of Facebook underscores this fact. Business owners and Internet marketers are wise to capitalize on the seemingly endless reach of these websites.
Social media can’t do much to support a PPC campaign. But it can do wonders for your SEO program. It can help you promote your content to a targeted audience, increasing the number of links you acquire from other websites. Link popularity is a key ranking factor in all of the major search engines. Social media sites can help you increase your link popularity and, by extension, your organic search engine rankings.
We are not suggesting you should ignore pay per click entirely. Here are some general “rules” to keep in mind:
If your website is part of your long-range marketing plan, you should incorporate SEO into the plan. Make it a regular part of your website development program.
With SEO, you are planting the seeds for long-term visibility.
If you need more search engine traffic in the meantime, you can always implement a PPC campaign as well.
Use pay per click in addition to search engine optimization, not in lieu of it.
PPC marketing can help you drive targeted visitors to your website in a hurry. So it certainly has its place. You just have to remember the downside. With pay per click, you will always have to pay for those clicks. The moment you cancel the campaign, the traffic stream dries up and you are no longer seen.
20% Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
80% Organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
*Various Industry Statistics Indicate that approx only 20% of online
users click PPC links VS 80% who click on organic SEO links