SEO ( Search Engine Optimization) Vs. PPC ( Pay Per Click) – Which Is Better?
This is a everlasting debate that can last forever. Which works better SEO or PPC? Asking which one works better is not the correct question to be asking only because I believe each one has it’s own unique features and downfalls. The correct question one should ask should be which one offers a better ROI (return on investment). This is the correct way of looking at this arguable battle as it is much more accurate when calculating ROI than to measure which works better. Let us say for example you run a pay per click campaign and get 200 clicks at one dollar per click. That will work out to a total cost of $200 for the PPC campaign. With a 2% conversion rate on the website that would work out to four sales. Now let us say we run a “cheap search engine optimization” campaign. For argument sake we will say that it will cost you one thousand dollars to get a fully optimized website setup for yourself. Now when it comes to SEO, time is the biggest factor as it can take anywhere from two weeks to two years to get ranked in the search engines. However for this example let’s say that you get listed within two weeks. Now this will be measured over a 12 month period. The pay per click campaign is a monthly cost so it works out to $200 x 12 months = $2400 per year. You make four sales per month so 4 x 12 = 48 sales per year. Let’s say your product makes you fifty dollars per sale. This will equal 48 x $50 = $2400 per year. Your ROI is then 0% as you have not lost any money or have not made a profit. Now lets say your SEO optimized website brings you only 50 visitors per day. With a 2% conversion rate you should make $50 per day. There are 365 days in a year so this will equal $18250 per year. This is a much greater ROI at approx 700%. Now this is just an example and results can vary significantly from above. It was only used as an example to show what ROI is. So now we will move on to factors to look out for when deciding what you should use for your own website.
The first factor in deciding what would work better for you is to determine whether your time or your money is more valuable to you. pay per click generally works quicker but costs more as SEO takes longer amount of time to implement and maintain into the future but is more cost efficient. In most cases you may not even need to pay for SEO. You can do cheap search engine optimization yourself if you are taught how to do it the correct. If you value your time more pay per click would be your best bet, but you can also implement some SEO tactics as well, you do not have to stick to just one method. If money is worth more to you I would definitely go the SEO route and spend my time on optimizing your website and getting backlinks to your site.
The next thing you should make note of is that if you are not too familiar with PPC it is very easy too lose a lot of money. So I would recommend that if you are not familiar with PPC then stick to SEO.
This is by far not a full out guide to SEO or PPC but it offers you some factors as to what to choose in order to better serve your business. Ultimately the factors are money and time. If you value your time more than your money then go with PPC, but if you value your money more than your time then go with SEO. You can find out some really cheap search engine optimization tactics by clicking on the previous link.
