If you have a website it is more than likely you will have heard a lot said about PPC and SEO. If you are like a lot of people we work with you will be wondering what is the best to go with and what should you really be doing. This article will give you some advice and tips on the best way to approach your internet marketing campaign.



What is PPC?

Well PPC is a shortening for pay-per-click and this is basically the paid results on a search engine. On Google these are the results that appear on the right hand side and you pay every time someone clicks on your advert. The more you pay for every click the higher you will be in these results.

What is SEO?

SEO is a shortening for search engine optimisation and this is the process of getting yourself to the top of the free search engine results. On Google these are the main results on the left hand side. This involves doing things to your website and getting links in order to be the best site for your chosen terms.

PPC or SEO?

If you have worked with a web design company then there is a chance they will have recommended a marketing campaign to you. However knowing exactly what to do and which one to choose can be difficult. We would always recommend our clients to use a combination of both PPC and SEO.

I imagine you are already thinking why use both? Well they both have different qualities and will bring you traffic. The advantage of PPC is that it is instant. The minute you start your advert it will be shown and you will start getting traffic. For a new website this is a must as you will not be seen otherwise.

So why use SEO at all? Well the truth is that only about 30% of searchers will ever click on the paid results and so if you are only there you will be missing a lot of potential customers. However the problem with SEO is that it can take a long time before you appear on the first page of the search results. For that reason you need to start off with both.

We would always recommend to our clients that they start on day one with their PPC campaign and also with their SEO campaign. For the first few months it is likely they will only see traffic from their PPC campaign. However over time they will start to pick up traffic through the free search engine results as their SEO campaign begins to take hold.

If you were to only go for SEO you would have to pay out a lot and wait a long time before you saw any real traffic to your website. However if you only go for PPC then you will find you will miss out on a large amount of potential traffic.

Conclusion

If you are told by others you should go for one or the other remember they are both useful and can both bring you business. If you really want your online business to be a success you need to get as many people to it as possible. The only way to do this is by using both PPC and SEO.