What are PPC and SEO marketing?
It can be difficult to understand the intricacies of PPC and SEO campaigns. To help you out, we’ve created an overview of each marketing strategy and its pros and cons.
What is PPC?
PPC or pay-per-click is a form of online advertising that means a brand only pays for the ad each time someone clicks on it. PPC advertisements appear on any platform that drives traffic to a website. When PPC advertising is used correctly, the revenue the ads bring in should be significantly higher than the cost of the ad itself.
While it seems easy enough, a successful PPC campaign is more than just selecting and bidding on keywords. Here’s an overview of the steps of a PPC campaign:
- Develop an online marketing strategy
- Research and identity which search queries you want to bid on
- Calculate the value of each visit to your page and set your bid maximum accordingly
- Write your PPC copy and link it to the relevant landing page
- Monitor your ads and performance
- Adjust where needed
The Pros of PPC
With the ability to identify and target specific customer groups, PPC is an ideal marketing tool for brand exposure. Unlike organic marketing, where a brand creates content with no guarantee that the intended audience will find it, PPC marketing is configured for specific demographics and locations.
PPC yields quick results. Once an ad appears on a platform, you can immediately see people clicking through to your page. Which can help grow brand awareness and increase revenue quickly. Because PPC is quick to set up, you can capitalise on events, sales, and product launches.
A PPC campaign puts you in the driver’s seat. When you run a PPC campaign, you are in charge of the keywords, bidding limit, target audience, and when the campaign runs.
You can start small and grow. Unlike traditional forms of advertising, PPC doesn’t require a significant upfront cost. You can start with a relatively small budget and, if it is successful, invest more money into PPC advertising over time.
PPC provides a wealth of data. PPC campaigns provide insights into impressions, clicks, and conversions for each keyword you use. PPC campaigns will also be able to show you where your audience is. This data is invaluable and can be used across your marketing strategy.
The Cons of PPC
PPC is complicated. Like any form of advertising, PPC requires expertise. If you launch a PPC campaign without research, understanding your market and goals, and a clear budget, it could cost you money and time. If you want to avoid frustration, you can always outsource to a team of experts, like us at SOMO.
People are sceptical of advertisements. Gone are the days of people not knowing when something is an ad. Nowadays people can quickly identify when something is a paid post or an ad, this is why creating quality content and implementing an SEO strategy in conjunction with a PPC campaign is vital.
PPC is highly competitive. You’re not the only one trying to convert your target audience into buyers. High levels of competition mean that the cost of some high-value keywords can be high. Maintaining a good quality score with Google can help mitigate the cost of PPC.
What is SEO?
SEO, or search engine optimisation, is a marketing strategy that involves creating a website with content designed to appear at the top of Google search results, referred to as ranking.
When the Google algorithm decides what should appear at the top of search results, it considers different factors. Here is a quick list of what can impact ranking:
- Google favours fresh and unique content.
- Location of the keywords matters. Content should be front-loaded with keywords at the beginning.
- The title should be front-loaded and include a keyword.
- Break up content with the subheadings.
- Page speed matters. As strange as it may sound, Google rewards pages that load faster.
- Optimise the meta description. While the meta description doesn’t impact the SEO, it can impact the click-through rate.
- Optimise your images for load time and quality by choosing the right file type for the image.
- Avoid keyword stuffing. When Google realises that the page’s content is just filled with keywords while sacrificing the content quality, Google will penalise the page.
The Pros of SEO
One of the biggest and most obvious pros of SEO is that it’s free. If your SEO campaign is successful, you’re getting significant exposure without paying somewhere to advertise.
A successful SEO campaign is generally long-lasting. As long as you maintain your SEO campaign and keep the pages up-to-date, once your pages rank on Google, they generally stay around the top of the page.
Once your pages are ranking, there is sustained traffic to your page. Because an SEO campaign targets a specific search query, pages that rank at the top of that query capture traffic that is already looking for what you’re offering.
A successful SEO campaign results in increased brand integrity and trust. The higher a brand appears on a search engine results page, the more likely a user will trust the brand. A recent survey showed that 28% of people click on the first result in Google, and most users don’t click through to the second page.
The Cons of SEO
SEO is a slow-moving process. SEO generally takes months for you to see any consistent pay-off. If you’re looking to grow revenue quickly, SEO probably isn’t what you’re looking for.
You’re dependent on an algorithm. While there’s a lot of information out there about SEO, we still don’t know the intricacies of the Google algorithm. Additionally, Google performs regular updates which can cause a sharp decline in your ranking. Combining SEO with a PPC campaign can help to provide more control.
There’s no guarantee that an SEO campaign will be successful. While significant time and energy go into an SEO campaign, you might find that it does not yield any results.
Want to know more about how SOMO can help you grow your business revenue? Why not set up a free strategy call with us today.
Or check out our blog to read more about online marketing.
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