SEO vs PPC. The pros and cons

SEM, aka Search Engine Marketing, is the "knowledge" of bringing targeted visitors to a certain site. And, as perhaps many of you know, SEM is composed by two somehow distinct parts: SEO and PPC. In this little article that was inspired by this great article here (Careful, it’s in Romanian), I’m going to put in balance the pros and the cons of each of these methods.

Let’s start with SEO. First, the definition.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is " the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. (source)"

SEO – the pros

• long term results (benefits remain after the campaign is over)
• High ROI
• In most of the cases, a proper SEO campaign comes with much lower costs than a PPC campaign
• can be very lucrative if done correctly

SEO – the cons

• is a long term process and you only get middle to long time results
• it’s a complicated process involving hundreds of factors
• in most cases, can’t guarantee exact results (like first position for a keyword)
• requires programming skills in order to modify the code of your site
• should only be done by pros, as there are things that might get you banned by Search Engines if done "by ear"
• you can’t really target many keywords and people from different geographical regions (a .fr site will have few chances of ranking naturally in .uk, for example)

On the other hand, PPC is a different thing all-together.

PPC (Pay Per Click ) is " an Internet advertising model used on search engines, advertising networks, and content sites, such as blogs, in which advertisers pay their host only when their ad is clicked.(source)"

PPC – the pros

• can guarantee exact results (first position for a keyword, with a proper budget)
• you only pay when a visitor comes to the site
• you don’t have to modify the code of the site
• you can target many keywords and people from different geographical regions
• offers you immediate results and immediate visitors

PPC – the cons

• setting and managing campaigns is kind of tricky. Should only be done by professional (if a campaign is not performing, it will be automatically deactivated)
• it’s pricey (very if not properly administrated)
• can be frauded (details here)
• can be affected by visitors add blinding (people generally prefer natural search results over the paid ones, which they tend to ignore)

In the end, both SEO and PPC have the purpose to get targeted visitors to your site, visitors that might easily be converted in customers (where customer is a visitor that does the action you want him to do ). Which of the both parts of SEM you choose to use is up to you.

Personally, i recommend first building a proper web-site that would take into consideration all the SEO, usability and design rules . By doing this, you will have a chance to attract visitors natural for your targeted keywords and convert them. Then start building up the site in order to get better positions in natural searches. Only after doing this start focusing on the PPC part. Be careful who you hire to manage your campaigns, how you convert the visitors and watch closely your long time ROI. Or else… things might get a little bit nasty

Tags: Google, PPC, search engine, SEO, Yahoo