SEO vs. PPC: Knowing Which Is Right for Your Website

When it comes to boosting traffic to your website, you have two basic options: pay-per-click (PPC) advertising or search engine optimization (SEO).

The main difference between SEO and PPC is that traffic coming from SEO (organic) is free while traffic generated from PPC is not free.

You can pay for traffic using the PPC advertising programs provided by Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing and others. They enable you to display ads in the sponsored results section of each search engine’s results page. Then, you pay a fee — based on how competitive your chosen keyword is — whenever a viewer clicks through from your ad to your website.

But which approach is better? It depends on your needs and budget. If you want more traffic fast and are willing to pay for it, then PPC might be right for you. But if you’re operating on a shoestring budget, it may make more sense to invest time in chasing high search rankings through SEO.

Organic Traffic vs. Paid Search Advertising

Here are three questions to consider when deciding whether SEO or PPC is best for your business:

1. How large is your website advertising budget?

In choosing between SEO and PPC, you first need to decide what size advertising budget your business can support. You can set your daily spending limit as low as you’d like, but it can be a good idea to start with a minimum of INR 500 to INR 1000 a day.

If you have no money to commit to advertising, you’ll need to stick with free SEO methods. But if you have even a little capital to invest in PPC advertising, consider giving it a try because it offers a number of benefits, including:

• Faster testing
• Protection from SEO algorithm updates

2. How high are the average CPCs in your industry?

In addition to setting your overall advertising budget, take a look at what other people in your industry are paying for ads. Those prices make it more difficult for new advertisers to turn a profit from PPC traffic. In such cases, SEO might be a better choice.

3. How competitive are the SERPs in your niche?

You also will want to determine how competitive the search engine results pages (SERPs) are for your target keywords. To do this, enter your keywords into the Google External Keyword Research Tool, which will tell you the estimated competition level, as well as the number of advertisers bidding on your keywords and the average CPCs. In such cases, it may ultimately make more sense to pay for traffic via PPC promotions.

When combined, PPC and SEO can be quite powerful. Ask yourself these three questions and determine the optimal mix of PPC and SEO for your website.