Why Is SEO (Not PPC) Still the Best Choice for Your Website?

 

Why Is SEO (Not PPC) Still the Best Choice for Your Website?

Whether it is faulty faucets or clogged pipelines, you probably have your tools sorted. But when it comes to earning traffic and growing conversions for your Website, you need the right strategy.

So, whether SEO or PPC, which is the right marketing strategy for your website?

Well, our blog title itself answers that question. But let’s understand how SEO takes the lead here.

And is there a better solution than SEO? Let’s find out!

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

SEO is the technique of optimizing your site’s pages, content, and elements to rank your site for relevant keywords in SERPs.

Search engines (Google, Bing, etc.) use specific algorithms to evaluate and rank a site. And SEO experts analyze these algorithms and the ranking signals to optimize a site accordingly.

Here is how Google displays organic results that are achieved through SEO:

The bright side is that search engines don’t charge you anything for the organic rankings. But this perk also translates into breakneck competition on the search engine result pages.

With SEO, your only investment is on your hired SEO team that fights this uphill battle for you.

By now, you know what SEO is and how it works. So let’s heed to scrutinize SEO’s capability to grow your business.

Advantages of Using SEO for Website

1. Massive Amount of Potential Traffic for your Website

Today, 90% of consumers search for local businesses via search engines. Having said that, you can expect a considerable amount of relevant traffic via good SEO rankings.

So, if you plan and optimize for the right keywords, you can earn huge traffic and leads. Usually, consumers may search for plumbing services using the search terms like:

• plumber near me
• plumber in (location)
• drain repair services
• best plumbing company/services in (location)
• plumbing repair in (location)

If you manage to rank for some of these terms organically, you can attract massive traffic. A tip is to use location-specific and service-specific keywords.

You must also include long-tail keywords to increase the relevancy of the organic traffic. Moreover, less competitive keywords for which you can rank easily.

2. The Rankings are Not Volatile and Persist Longer

Many businesses choose PPC to earn quick visibility on the first page of Google. However, these rankings dissolve or vaporize as soon as your PPC budget exhausts.

On the other end, once you achieve good organic rankings, they persist longer. Even if your entire SEO team takes a week off, you might not notice any evident changes in your rankings.

Moreover, top SEO rankings are seen to display higher stability.

The top 5 organic results are likely to retain their positions longer even if left unattended.

More and more pages regularly link back to the top pages. And the inbound links naturally correlate with better SEO. Thus, helping them retain their positions longer in the SERPs.

Therefore, achieving top organic rankings is far more rewarding than buying ranks via PPC. The paid ads will not stand a minute after you have exhausted your PPC budget.

3. SEO Offers a Lower Cost-per-Visitor than PPC

SEO is generally more economical than PPC. You do not need to pay Google for the organic ranks. Instead, you can allocate your marketing budget to your SEO operations.

Therefore, you do not pay for any traffic that comes to your site via organic rankings. On the contrary, you have to pay for every click on your PPC ad.

The minimum cost for commercial plumbing services keywords is around $5 per click. That itself means that you are paying $5000 for sending a thousand visitors to your site. And these visitors are still not your solid leads or customers.

The cost-per-click rises as you choose to bid for more competitive keywords. Moreover, you need few weeks of experimentation before your PPC campaigns start offering returns.

If we consider all these factors, SEO is pretty healthier for your pocket.

4. Your Local SEO Efforts Pay Off with Regular Leads

As aforementioned, a majority of consumers use Google to search for your business. And so, Google displays their results based on their location and requirements.

This gives local businesses a better chance to outperform the generic results.

For instance, a search term like “web agency” gives you generic results relevant to this term. However, a search term like “men’s saloon” will display saloons in your proximity.

So, your local SEO efforts work well for your business. And if you manage to rank for relevant local queries, you can expect oodles of qualified leads.

Some of your crucial local SEO efforts include:

• Creating and Optimize your Google My Business (GMB) profile.
• Establishing a business profile on popular and relevant business listing sites
• Attracting quality inbound links from relevant sites
• Encouraging abounding Google reviews from your customers.

Google also displays a local 3-pack section, which shows the top 3 results for a local query. The local 3-pack results enjoy exclusive visibility and gain the highest no. of clicks on a results page.

Here is how the local 3-pack results look:

An exclusive GMB profile with abounding positive reviews helps you rank in the local 3-pack. The local 3-pack results also outperform the Google Search Ads results in terms of visibility.

5. You Do Not Require a BIG Initial Investment

While PPC requires you to dedicate a handsome campaign budget to start your marketing, SEO doesn’t require a big initial investment.

You can start with a small team and a minimal budget for operations. Some businesses start with a team as small as two members - an SEO expert and a content writer.

A majority of SEO tasks are free and require efforts more than monetary investments. You might need a budget for collaborations, but that is limited to the initial stage.

The total setup cost and operations cost of SEO is pretty lower than PPC.

Moreover, businesses invest more efforts in local SEO, which is entirely free.

6. SEO Boosts your Brand’s Credibility and Trust

Google aims at offering the most valuable results for your search queries. And so, it will only rank your website on the top if it deems the site to offer the best value.

So, it takes a plentiful of credibility, relevance, and effort to rank organically. And if you manage to do so, it reflects your site’s value for that particular query.

Hence, the top organic ranking is itself a prominent social proof for your business.

Consumers also consider it as an authentic badge of credibility. And they endow a significant trust in your brand. This also increases the conversion rate of organic visitors to your site.

If you hold your top positions for over a year on SERPs, you can establish a good brand presence. And you can even start receiving good traffic through your branded keywords. Conversions will follow!

Top organic rankings are the surest way to lead online. You earn trust, credibility, traffic, and conversions, and that too without paying a penny. What more could you ask from Google?

7. SEO Offers Higher Click-through-rate (CTR)

We are witnessing a rise of savvy consumers who are familiar with online research. And therefore, they understand the difference between paid and organic listings.

With that said, a majority of consumers prefer to click on organic results over the paid ones.

They trust Google for sorting the best results for their queries in the form of organic listings.

Hence, the top organic listings enjoy a higher CTR than the top paid listings on SERPs.

Now, Google ranks websites based on the relevancy and intent of a search query. So, if your business ranks on the top for a query, you attract huge relevant traffic. This traffic translates into better user metrics and a higher conversion rate.

For your Website, you must aim to rank in the local 3-pack. The results in the local 3-pack attract the highest CTR for local businesses.

8. You Rank for a Larger Set of Keywords

While planning the main SEO keywords, it is advisable to consider long-tail keywords as well.

These long-tail and LSI keywords increase a content’s relevancy for specific search queries. And it helps content to rank for search terms related to the focus keywords. Thereby, it increases the scope and visibility of your content online.

A quality long-form blog content can rank for over 1000 keywords.

On the other end, you can try a limited keyword set for your PPC campaign. And your ads will trigger for those limited keywords.

If you wish to increase your scope via PPC, you need to create more campaigns. And that also means a higher PPC budget.

Disadvantages of Using SEO

1. SEO Takes Several Months to Display results

SEO, unlike PPC, is a long-term marketing strategy and requires nurturing. You cannot expect your SEO efforts to produce results overnight.

Even the luckiest businesses take about 2-6 months to rank for at least one keyword. And a majority of businesses cannot see any results in the top rankings within a year.

The initial phase is about a series of experiments and establishing an SEO-friendly profile. And businesses need to figure out their way to the top of SERPs.

Your business would require you to fight against the local competition. And the local 3-pack that earns the maximum CTR is limited to 3 results.

However, you can still take the lead if the local competition in your area is low. It gives you a chance to rank faster for location-specific keywords and searches.

But, it still doesn’t meet your goals if you wish to reap the results from the first day.

2. SEO Market is Highly Competitive

The fact that SEO is free also makes it a highly competitive marketing channel.

As per Moz, the first-page results conquer over 72% of clicks, and recently this figure rose to 92%. Moreover, a majority of these clicks are captured by the top 5 results.

You can expect thousands (or a million) of businesses fighting for the top 5 positions. The numbers sound sweat-inspiring, right?

Further, search engines follow a long list of ranking signals. You must produce quality content and comply with these ranking factors to witness results.

People will only link back to your site if they find your content valuable and authentic. And these links will eventually translate into your domain authority.

However, it is a long-term process that requires expertise, research, and abounding efforts. You need to have an alternate lead-generation channel until your SEO results kick in.

3. PPC Results Eat into Your Traffic

Google reserves the top 4 positions in the SERPs for paid ads. And the organic results follow these paid results.

Therefore, these paid results get the best visibility on the SERPs. And they often capture a significant amount of traffic on the first page.

So, even if you make it to the first page, you might have a lower traffic share.

It is a crucial limitation when it comes to your business. Google populates its first results page with 2-types of paid ads for local business queries. These 2-types of paid ads include – Local Services Ads and Google Search Ads.

So the order of results on keywords related to business look like this:

1. Google Local Service ads
2. Google Search Ads
3. Google local 3-pack results
4. Organic search listings

The text-based organic listings don’t even appear on the first fold of the results page. And they get a lower share of the clicks on the first page.

Here is a screenshot of the results page for the keyword “plumbing services in Chicago.”

You cannot see the text-based organic results in the first fold of the results page.

4. Your Competitors have a Clearer View at Your SEO Strategies

With SEO, you are not hiding your efforts or your results. But each user has equal access to check your site and SEO results on the web.

Moreover, unlike PPC, you cannot employ a granular targeting option for a specific audience. And this allows your competitors to keep a close eye on your SEO progress.

Tools like SEMRush and Ahrefs allow your competitors to scrutinize your SEO strategy. This analysis unveils the leaks in your strategy and helps them dethrone you from your ranks.

The lack of granular audience targeting options also divides your precision. And therefore, you are likely to attract a huge amount of irrelevant audiences as well.

However, you should use hyper-local keywords. These keywords will help them curtail some competition and irrelevant traffic to their site.

PPC (Pay per click)

PPC advertising model requires the marketer to pay for each click on his ad. This ad model was introduced and popularized by search engines (Google, Bing).

Here is how Google displays paid ad results for the keyword “plumbing services Chicago”:

These PPC ads function on a dedicated campaign budget. And the cost-per-click (for Google Ads) differs based on parameters like:

• The competition and bid on the keywords added to a campaign
• The ad relevancy
• The ad’s position
• The campaign’s quality and internal parameters

Google offers you several types of PPC advertising options. These are based upon the type of industry, the ad’s form, the campaign goal, etc.

Moreover, Google Ads also allows marketers to leverage detailed targeting options. Using these options, you can specify your target audience, keywords, geography, etc.

Today, the PPC model has also become popular among several social media platforms. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Quora are some platforms that offer PPC advertising.

PPC ad, unlike SEO, is a paid ad listing that only appears until you feed your campaign. The ads will cease to appear if your campaign budget exhausts.

Advantages of Using PPC for Website

1. PPC is Ideal for Quick Results

SEO may take up to several weeks or months to deliver any result. In contrast, you can jumpstart your PPC campaigns within days.

It just takes choosing your ad platform, creating your campaigns, and adding your budget. And you are ready to launch your PPC ads.

The speed of PPC campaigns outperforms SEO any day. And you can definitely use PPC for generating quick traffic and leads.

A significant no. of startups and businesses dedicate their initial marketing budget to PPC. It helps businesses by giving them a quick leap in search engine visibility. And they can attract some leads in the initial marketing phase itself.

2. Google Local Services Ads Offer an Unparalleled Visibility

Google offers expanded advertising space for local businesses with Local Services Ads. These ads dominate the top spot on Google’s results page for local business queries.

Now, Local Services Ads can be ideal advertising space for your business. You can target your location and audience to show them your sponsored business profile.

Here is how your Google Local Services Ads will look:

The cost of advertising calculates on the competition, location, and keyword choices.

These ads attract a significant amount of clicks owing to the highest visibility. However, Google liberates you from the cost-per-click debt here. For Local Services Ads, you only pay when a user contacts you through your CTA.

Another perk is that you have a choice between Google Search Ads and Local Services Ads. You can compare both these options in terms of cost and potential conversions.

You might also choose to run a short-term A/B testing campaign for these two types of ads. First, however, you got to keep an eye on your marketing budget and overall ROI.

3. PPC Offers a Better Reach with Granular Targeting Options

PPC offers you high-precision targeting so you can display your ads to a specific audience. Its granular targeting options allow you to sort via demographics, interest, geography, etc.

PPC helps you eliminate the irrelevant audience via the targeting option. And thus, increasing the ROI of your campaigns.

Businesses with a small marketing budget can make their campaigns more cost-effective. And specific targeting also debars your competitors from taking a sneak peek into your ads.

Your ads only appear to the searchers who might turn into your potential customers.

On the contrary, you have no precise targeting options when utilizing SEO. You could only adjust your audience through the keywords you use in your content.

4. You can Attain the Top Positions for Your Focus Keywords

One thing that makes PPC unquestionably desirable is the high visibility it offers.

Google wants marketers to make the most out of their investment. And so, it conserves the top 4 positions on the results page for paid ads.

With PPC, marketers can easily acquire the top ranks in the SERPs for competitive keywords. However, these ranks stay until you have a sufficient budget to feed your campaigns.

On the contrary, it may require you months of effort to rank for highly competitive keywords using SEO. And you would still find a spot below the PPC ads.

Optimized PPC ads can reward you with substantial qualified traffic and leads. But you must have your conversion strategy in place. At the end of the day, you are paying for each click on your ad.

5. Employ PPC for Agile Experimentation and A/B Testing

PPC campaigns deliver quick results and are helps you make agile modifications.

Moreover, PPC results have a faster response time to the edits in a campaign. So, you can make modifications in a campaign to scrutinize the effects on the results.

You can employ quick experimentation like:

• Changes in the targeting, demographics, set of keywords, the ad’s messaging, etc.
• Or run A/B tests on landing pages and even your target geographies.

These experiments will help you optimize your PPC campaigns and increase ROIs. In addition, the data from PPC campaigns can also inform your other marketing strategies.

And these tests also inform marketers about the necessary changes in the SEO strategy.

Contrarily, SEO may take weeks (if not months) to reflect any changes in the strategy. And this makes it challenging for marketers to employ A/B tests or experiments.

6. PPC Results Display Lesser Fluctuation than Organic Results

We witness some minor and major updates in the search engine algorithms all year long. And these updates are likely to bring some turbulence in the organic rankings.

However, the paid rankings remain unaffected by these ranking signal updates. And the paid rankings generally witness far lower turbulence than the organic rankings.

Moreover, changes like keyword bids or ad competition are more manageable. PPC gives you higher control over your ranking positions and ad visibility.

Therefore, expert PPC marketers can stably optimize your PPC campaigns. You can also employ automation in PPC management.

SEO requires closer detailing and manual research throughout the process. Therefore, you cannot employ automation in SEO.

Disadvantages of Using PPC

1. PPC can be Unreasonably Expensive

Akin to SEO, PPC also has fierce competition as Google offers a limited number of ad positions.

So, if you wish to rank for competitive keywords, you must have a handsome PPC budget.

The bids on transactional intent keywords range from $5 to $50. It depends upon your target keywords, location, and competition.

Moreover, you pay for each click on your ad. And it goes without saying that you still have to convert this paid traffic into customers.

An anecdote that represents why PPC might be an expensive choice:

DropBox had a real bummer with Google Ads in 2009.

The company experimented with promoting their product via Google Ads for some weeks.

And soon, they were dumbfounded with a cost-per-acquisition (CPA) of $233 - $388. The bitter cup was that the price of the product they promoted was only $99.

Now that was just a rare experience, and still, many companies benefit from PPC.

But, you must remember you are using money to make money with PPC. And if you are tracking highly competitive keywords, you must have a handsome budget.

PPC might not be the right fit for a startup if you are already on a low budget.

You might need to work on your target location and analyze low-competition keywords. Also, you need to plan a high-conversion landing page to decrease the cost-per-acquisition.

2. Google Ad Rankings are Volatile

No matter how lucrative PPC might seem, it might fail to serve as a long-term strategy.

With PPC, you are renting the top positions on Google. And the rent is due for every click. In contrast, with SEO, you fight the competition to own the top ranks on SERPs.

So, your ads would hold their positions until you maintain the campaign budget. And these ads would cease to appear the minute your campaign runs out of budget.

On the contrary, once you achieve good rankings in SEO, they are likely to stay longer. Though it isn’t advisable to stop your SEO efforts altogether, you can still plan short leaves.

Organic rankings are based on ranking signals and search engine algorithms. Unless there is an update or penalty, you won’t notice a major change in your SEO ranks.

With that said, it might not make sense to opt for PPC as your long-term strategy. However, it also depends upon the conversion rate you draw from your campaigns.

3. Experimentation can Itself Exhaust Your Marketing Budget

Many businesses assume that PPC ads will start giving returns on the day of their launch. However, it is not true.

Nevertheless, PPC campaigns can start offering you traffic on the day of their launch. There are high chances that this traffic is irrelevant. And maybe you need more time to optimize for the qualified traffic.

PPC campaigns offer you an overwhelming no. of targeting options. And you possibly have a long list of keywords from which you choose your PPC keywords.

So, you would require a significant amount of time and budget to optimize your campaigns. You might need to implement A/B tests for your keywords, targeting, and landing pages.

Even a seasoned PPC expert can take several days or weeks to define your ideal ad strategy.

This experimentation also requires a significant marketing budget. And you might end up exhausting your PPC budget without reaping any conversions.

So, if you plan to start with a small marketing budget, PPC might fail to delight you.

4. PPC Ads have a Lower Click-through-rate (CTR)

Today, consumers are far more familiar with online research and search engines. They understand the difference between sponsored and paid results on the SERPs.

Moreover, consumers know that Google ranks organic results based on their value for a particular query. And so, they prefer to ignore the paid results and scroll down to the organic results.

A majority of users also feel that top organic results deliver the best answers to their queries. And hence they have a habit of skipping the paid results and click on relevant organic results.

Top organic results can capture up to half of your potential traffic even if your ad shows up on the top of SERPs.

And this issue can be more crucial for your local services business. Local business queries on Google are catered with an additional local 3-pack results feature.

This local 3-pack displays the best three results for a query in a specially designed section. This section atop the organic results list and follows the paid ads section.

The results in the local 3-pack section enjoy distinctive visibility on SERPs. And therefore, they generally outperform the paid ads on the results page in terms of CTR.

SEO VS PPC

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

PPC (Pay per click) Advertising

1) Ranks that are achieved via SEO stay longer and aren’t volatile.

SEO results are based on the ranking signals and the value a result offers. So, they tend to persist longer.

Google only ranks your page when it deems the page as the best result to a specific query. So, your rank remains intact until some other site offers a better solution to that query.

Your PPC ad positions and listings are volatile.

With PPC, you are paying the search engines a rent for the top positions. And the search engines charge you for every click.

So, your paid listings will completely disappear when your ad budget depletes.

2) SEO strategy costs you far lesser than PPC

With SEO, Google doesn’t charge you anything to show your listings. And your investment is only directed towards the team and resources you hire.

PPC advertising can drill a deep hole in your pocket

With PPC (Google Ads), Google charges you an advertising cost per click. Moreover, the bid on competitive keywords can go up to $50 per click.

And, we have not yet considered the cost of hiring PPC consultants.

3) SEO can take weeks or months to generate any results.

Though SEO is economical, you might have to wait for at least 2-6 months to see any results. And a majority of businesses witness significant results after 10-12 months.

PPC ads offer you results far quicker than SEO

A PPC consultant can build and launch your PPC campaign within 2-3 days. And if you set the right ad targeting and keywords, you can start earning traffic on the day of its launch.

4) Experimentation is more challenging with SEO

SEO strategies take a longer time to deliver results. Hence, it becomes tough for SEO experts to experiment with strategies.

PPC is ideal for quick experiments and A/B tests

Your PPC strategies deliver quick results. This agility helps marketers experiment with the set of keywords, ad messaging, targeting, etc. They also employ A/B tests between campaigns, landing pages, etc.

5) SEO might deliver a lower cost-per-acquisition (CPA)

Organic listings don’t cost you a penny. And you only have to bear the SEO operations cost.

If your strategy is right and you produce quality content, you can rank faster. It will reduce your cost-per-acquisition.

PPC tends to deliver higher cost-per-acquisition than SEO

PPC might deliver you results faster, but it costs more.

PPC strategy requires several A/B tests until you nail the right strategy. And the experimentation cost adds to the average cost per acquisition. Thus, increasing it significantly.

6) Top SEO rankings reflect strong social proof

Today, consumers understand Google’s vision to offer the best results for each query. And they deem the top organic results as credible businesses.

Hence, the high trust value for these results translates into increased conversions.

Top-ranking PPC ads don’t affect the social proof

Consumers view the “Ad” symbol as sponsored results. And so, they do not associate social proof with paid listings.

7) SEO decides its targeting around keywords

SEO doesn’t offer any precise targeting options. Instead, SEOs use focus keywords and long-tail keywords to define the target audience.

PPC allows marketers to employ precise, granular targeting

With PPC, you can filter your audience and reach prudently. You can set the target demographics, keywords, geography, etc., for your ads. It is crucial for optimizing the ROI of your campaigns.

8) Top organic listings have a higher CTR (Click-through-rate)

Many consumers consider top organic results as more valuable than paid ads. And they skip the paid ads to click on the organic results.

Paid listings may fail to appeal to a small fraction of consumers

The ‘sponsored’ aspect of paid listings can be off-putting for some consumers. And it might affect their CTR. However, the top position helps PPC ads capture abounding clicks.

9) SEO rankings may fluctuate with ranking algorithm updates

Google regularly releases several minor & major algorithm updates. And these updates can affect your rankings. A Manual Penalty can significantly affect your rankings.

PPC ad positions only fluctuate owing to the campaign parameters

Positions of PPC ads can be affected by keywords bids, competition, etc. But these fluctuations are easily manageable.

10) SEO strategies are more vulnerable to competition

Your SEO results are visible to a universal audience (including your competitors). And competitors can also use SEO tools to scrutinize your SEO strategy.

PPC strategies are less susceptible to sneak peeks or leaks

Your PPC ads only display to your target audience. And you have the authority to limit access to your PPC campaigns.

Benefit From PPC and SEO Working Together for Website

1. Data-backed Strategies to Optimize Return on Investments (ROIs)

Each of your SEO or PPC campaigns produces oodles of useful data metrics. You can use the data from your PPC campaigns to inform your SEO strategies or vice-versa.

These data metrics can include:

• The best performing services keywords
• The best performing landing pages
• Listings delivering the highest CTR
• The average conversion rate on pages
• The ad copies attracting the highest clicks
• The bounce rate on landing pages
• Keywords that attract irrelevant traffic

This data will offer you enough insights into what works the best for your business. So, if you use this PPC data to inform your SEO, you can save the time of experimentation.

Moreover, this data is collected from your actual campaigns. And so, it has high credibility, which makes it significantly valuable for your SEO strategies.

Using data from one strategy to inform other strategies reduces the risk of campaign failure. And it also gives marketers additional insights, which isn’t the case with a single strategy.

2. Increased Online Visibility and Growth in Traffic for your Website

Many businesses invest in their SEO and PPC strategies simultaneously. It helps them increase their online visibility on the search engine results pages.

Having more than one listing spot on SERPs also means more traffic to your site. And it translates into higher conversions for your business.

You can use Local SEO strategies alongside PPC for your Website. This way, you can gain quick results from your PPC campaigns. And you can rely on your SEO strategy for long-term returns.

Moreover, PPC might help you rank faster for highly competitive keywords. And you can cover other long-tail keywords in your SEO strategy.

It will make your PPC campaigns more precise and cost-effective. Moreover, it is easier to attain rankings for low-competition long-tail keywords via SEO.

In case you achieve both organic and PPC rankings on a good keyword, you have two choices:

• Either you can stop your PPC ads to save your PPC budget
• Or you can keep both the listings to maximize traffic and conversions

However, the former is an advisable choice as the PPC campaigns generally offer high CPA.

3. Rise in Conversions by Retargeting to Potential Customers

You might have probably heard about retargeting ads. But do you know that the retargeting ads have 10x higher CTR than other display ads?

There are many prudent ways to use retargeting ads in combination with SEO. You can use Facebook remarketing ads for retargeting the organic visitors on your site.

By analyzing the user data, you would know the visitors that bounced back from your site. You can try to convert these visitors via Facebook remarketing ads.

As per DataXu, retargeting ads can grow conversions up to 150%. This is far higher than regular display ads.

With retargeting ads, you can target users at different stages of the conversion funnel. This approach will increase the conversions for your business.

Retargeting ads will also boost brand awareness for your business. In fact, 70% of marketers employ these ads to grow awareness about their brand.

With that said, you have all the reasons to blend retargeting ads with your SEO strategy.

4. Increasing the Audience Reach with Social Media Ads

Haven’t we been discussing that SEO takes longer to offer results? You can use PPC to accelerate and grow your SEO efforts.

For instance, when you produce a long-form blog, it may take several weeks to gain some traction. However, you can use PPC ads to promote this blog.

This way, the blog reaches the ideal target audience faster. This audience can include the consumers who are in need of your services. Or these can be marketers and bloggers who might wish to link back to your blog.

To reduce the cost of these promotions, you can use more cost-effective PPC channels. Facebook and Twitter Ads can offer you a good reach at a lower cost than Google Ads.

5. Planning a Long-term Strategy for your business

Websites achieve a significant amount of business through online queries. And so, you can choose SEO as a long-term strategy for their business.

However, SEO may fail to offer their website a jumpstart in the initial phase. On the other end, PPC ads can offer your business some initial leads. But, it may fail to serve you as a cost-effective strategy in the long term.

So, the ideal strategy would be to blend your SEO efforts with PPC. You can also opt for Google Local Services Ads as they acquire the top spots on the Google results page.

These ads will earn you initial leads and also grow your brand awareness.

Meanwhile, you can grow your local SEO presence and try to rank for the local 3-pack.

The data from your PPC ads can serve as the stepping stones for your SEO strategy.

And your PPC experiments will future-proof your SEO efforts.

For instance, you can scrutinize the keywords before committing to them for a long-term SEO strategy.

You can use Facebook Ads for cost-effective lead generation.

Google Display Ads also offers significant reach at lower costs than Text Search Ads. You can promote your Website on sites attracting huge local traffic via display ads.

Once you start attaining significant organic traffic, you can discontinue your PPC efforts.

Into the Conclusion

A majority of users switch to search engines when searching for a service or a product. With that said, you need a well-defined search engine strategy for your Website.

Now, the obvious question that knocks on your door is – “What should I choose: SEO or PPC?”

SEO, on the one hand, has superior long-term benefits and lower operations costs. In comparison, PPC, on the other hand, can accelerate your growth with quicker lead generation. But the cost of operations for the latter is far more expensive.

Moreover, local SEO holds a significant value for your business. So, before you dive headfirst into lead generation, use this article to analyze the highs and lows of each strategy.

Nevertheless, it might make sense to follow an integrated SEO and PPC approach. You need to understand the right budget allocation and plan for high ROIs in the long term.

Let us know what, according to you, is the right choice for your website in the comments below. And, you can always drop us a query regarding the marketing strategy for your business. Keep marketing!