SEO vs. PPC: Which is better for your business?
When it comes to digital marketing, the main goal is to drive traffic to your site, content, or products. This is because the more traffic you drive, the more sales you make. And because both SEO and PPC help drive traffic, many small businesses and marketers wonder which is better.
With almost a decade of experience in digital marketing under my belt, I’ve seen firsthand how these two digital marketing strategies impact a business’s bottom line.
So, in this article, I’ll help you settle the SEO vs. PPC debate once and for all, so you know which to use.
SEO vs. PPC: Is there a Difference?
There’s a huge difference between SEO and PPC, and we’ll soon take a deep dive into each. However, the major difference between these 2 traffic-generation strategies is that SEO drives organic traffic (non-paid) while PPC is a paid traffic channel.
Let’s look more closely at these 2 search marketing channels to understand this difference better.
What Is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of optimizing your website and web pages to drive free organic traffic from search engines like Google.
With SEO, your goal is to follow WordPress SEO best practices on your site. Doing so helps search engines easily discover your content and display it in organic search results.
There are 3 things search engines do to find and display your content to their users:
- Crawling: Discover content on the internet by scanning each URL they find.
- Indexing: Organize the content they found during crawling, so they can quickly list it in search results for relevant queries.
- Ranking: Ordering the indexed content in search results so that the most relevant content appears at the top.
All 3 aspects can be influenced by the content you create and how you set up the technical aspects of your site.
The Pros of SEO
SEO offers numerous advantages for small business owners. In this section, we will look at some of the most significant ones.
1. Easy to DIY
Another huge advantage of SEO is that you can easily DIY your SEO with a powerful plugin like All In One SEO (AIOSEO).
AIOSEO is the best WordPress SEO plugin on the market, having a massive user base of over 3 million active installs. Millions of savvy website owners and marketers trust the plugin to help them dominate search engine results pages (SERPs) and drive relevant traffic to their sites. This is because the plugin has many powerful SEO features and modules to help you optimize your website for search engines and users.
Examples include:
- Search Statistics: This powerful Google Search Console integration lets you track your keyword rankings and see important SEO metrics with 1-click, and more.
- Next-gen Schema Generator: This is a no-code schema generator that enables users to generate and output any type of schema markup on your site.
With these powerful features, you don’t have to worry about hiring an SEO expert to get your site ranking. Plus, you don’t even need any coding or technical skills to use the plugin.
With AIOSEO, you can also handle many technical SEO issues and improve your site’s performance and speed. Just check out our technical SEO checklist if you need help with this.
For step-by-step instructions on how to install AIOSEO, check out our installation guide.
2. Cost-effective
Yes, SEO has its costs, but when you look at the long game, the expense of ranking your site and content is minimal compared to what you’d shell out for other marketing like PPC. A key reason for SEO’s effectiveness is its strong reliance on well-written content, coupled with the necessity of properly setting up your website to achieve higher rankings on SERPs.
Once these 2 elements are in place, you’ll reap the rewards for a long time. All that’s needed is maintenance that comes at little to no cost.
Another significant advantage of SEO is that it’s scalable. Again, this is possible without incurring significant costs to drive exponential traffic to your site.
3. Consistent Traffic
One of the benefits of SEO is that you can generate consistent traffic to your site as long as you rank high on Google for your target keywords. In fact, you can expect a gradual increase in traffic as your content rises up the SERPs.
Also, once you reach position #1 of SERPs or land the featured snippet, you get to enjoy a consistent flow of traffic to your site for a long time. Besides this, organic traffic is also more stable than paid traffic, which depends on your ad budget.
4. Organic Ranking Builds Brand Authority
Ranking organically for important keywords helps build brand authority. This results in your target audience trusting you as an authority in your industry. Additionally, ranking high on SERPs enhances your chances of acquiring relevant backlinks. Backlinks signify to search engines that you’re a trusted source, resulting in higher rankings.
For more on this check out our guide to Google E-E-A-T.
5. Excellent for Local Businesses
SEO is an excellent way to reach a local audience. This is because you can easily create SEO strategies targeted at local searches. For example, you can implement local business schema to let search engines know what your business deals in and its location. This results in your content appearing in local packs or getting rich snippets.
This makes SEO one of the most impactful marketing strategies for brick-and-mortar and service-based businesses.
The Cons of SEO
Despite being such a powerful digital marketing channel, SEO has its caveats. Here are some of the most significant ones:
1. SEO Takes Time
One of the biggest cons of SEO is that it takes time before you start seeing results. This is particularly true if your website is new. This is because several factors affect how search engines rank websites. And several of these are dependent on search engines crawling and indexing your site. They are also dependent on other signals, like engagement.
However, you can speed up elements like indexing by using AIOSEO’s IndexNow integration. With IndexNow, your new or updated content gets indexed instantly on platforms that support the IndexNow protocol.
For more on this, check out our article that looks at how long SEO takes.
2. Search Engine Algorithms Change
One weakness of SEO is that it’s dependent on search engines. And because search engine algorithms change regularly, this can sometimes impact your rankings and traffic. However, as long as you follow SEO best practices, algorithm changes aren’t usually a cause for concern.
3. Some Niches Can Be Very Competitive
Another disadvantage of SEO is that if you’re in a highly competitive niche, you’ll have to work harder to gain good organic rankings. This involves creating a substantial amount of content to establish topical authority and acquire backlinks. Doing so will also mean spending more on content creation and marketing.
Need help getting eyes on your content?
Then check out our list of the best content marketing tools to help you do so.
Overall, the pros of SEO far outweigh the cons, making SEO an excellent marketing channel for any type of business. Plus, because you can DIY your SEO, you can save extra since you don’t have to pay an SEO professional. This makes SEO an excellent choice for small businesses, especially those on a shoestring marketing budget.
PPC Explained
Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing is an online advertising channel where you pay publishers, such as Google and other search engines, to display your content in front of a targeted audience. In short, you pay to drive traffic to your site using Google ads, display ads, social media ads, etc.
Pros of PPC
PPC has many benefits it offers. Here are some of the most significant ones:
1. Highly Targeted
One of the most significant advantages of PPC is that you can set up your campaigns to target a specific audience type. When setting up your campaigns, you can specify the demographic data of your audience. For example, you can set the geographic location, age, marital status, interests, and more. Doing so makes for high-quality leads.
2. Fast Results
Another advantage of PPC is that it produces fast results. This is because your ads are displayed at the top of SERPs, above organic search listings, giving you greater visibility.
Plus, your ads are immediately displayed to the right audience as soon as your campaign is live, especially on other PPC platforms like social media. If you’re looking for immediate results, PPC is the best marketing channel for you.
Cons of PPC
While fast results and targeted traffic may sound great, PPC has its disadvantages. Let me show you some of the most significant ones.
1. Can Be Complicated
One of the most significant cons of PPC is that it can be quite complicated for beginners. Setting up impactful campaigns requires certain skills and knowledge in running PPC ad campaigns. If you don’t have that, you may end up throwing money down the drain.
2. Can Be Expensive
You can’t run PPC ads without money. And if you’re in a competitive niche, the cost you pay for each click to your website can be pretty high. The cost-per-click (CPC) in a competitive industry can even reach hundreds of dollars per click in competitive niches!
And the return on that investment is not guaranteed.
3. Ads Can Lose Effectiveness
Unlike SEO, PPC ads can lose their effectiveness with time. One reason for this is that people may get too accustomed to seeing your ads, leading to them losing their novelty.
Additionally, due to the limitations in PPC ad design, it becomes easy for most ad copy in your industry to become similar. As a result, your target audience will quickly overlook your ads.
4. Higher Customer Acquisition Costs (CACs)
While PPC campaigns may yield fast, short-term wins, they typically come at the cost of higher customer acquisition costs compared to SEO. This is compounded by the fact that the more competitive your niche becomes, the more expensive it becomes to bid for important keywords.
5. Results Are Budget-Reliant
One of the biggest disadvantages of PPC is that results are dependent on your budget. Once you cut the funding, you immediately stop getting results. This is unlike SEO, where you can theoretically continue getting results from your content even if you don’t invest any more money into it.
SEO vs. PPC: Which Is Best for Small Businesses?
Now that you understand what SEO and PPC are, I’m sure it’s now easier to come to a consensus on the SEO vs. PPC debate.
So, which is the better marketing channel between SEO and PPC?
The answer is not clear-cut. However, for a small business, SEO is your best bet because:
- You can DIY your SEO
- It’s more cost-effective
- Produces results long after the campaign has been run
- Helps build brand authority
- And more
However, if you have the budget to run a PPC campaign, that shouldn’t stop you from running PPC ads. In fact, in an ideal situation, these 2 digital marketing strategies work best when they complement each other.
SEO vs. PPC: Your FAQs Answered
Which one is better, SEO or PPC?
The choice between SEO and PPC depends on your goals, budget, and timeline. SEO is a long-term strategy that requires time to see results, but it can provide sustainable organic traffic. PPC offers immediate visibility, but it can be costly and requires ongoing investment.
Can I use both SEO and PPC together?
Absolutely. In fact, many successful digital marketing strategies combine both approaches. PPC can provide immediate traffic while you work on building your organic presence through SEO. This can be particularly effective for new websites.
SEO vs. PPC: The Final Verdict
If you’re a small business on a shoestring marketing budget, we strongly recommend using SEO as your primary online marketing channel. Especially with a plugin like AIOSEO in your toolbox, you can easily set up your SEO and get your brand and products in front of the right audience.
We hope this article has helped you come to a conclusion concerning the SEO vs. PPC debate. You may also want to check out other articles on our blog, like our list of the best AI SEO tools for WordPress and our ultimate WordPress SEO guide.
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