Differentiating SEO from PPC Advertising
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay per Click (PPC) Advertising are two terms which are often heard in webmasters’ lingo. These two are often interchanged and people find it hard to differentiate one from the other. But PPC and SEO are very different from one another. SEO and PPC only have one thing in common; they are both essential parts of a good web marketing strategy.
PPC enables website owners and marketers to make their ads and use service providers like Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing or Microsoft AdCenter. Advertisers usually issue bids, which are specific amounts that they are willing to pay for their ad once it has been clicked. If two or more advertisers have the same keywords in their ad, the PPC ads provider will determine the PPC ranking based on the advertiser who has the highest bid and who has the most relevant ad.
Most new website owners opt for PPC ads because these ads are cheap and they are effective in promoting their site. Startup websites need this exposure to enable them to promote their products or services effectively but at the same time the advertising tool should be cheap because their funds are limited. If you want to generate traffic for your site quickly, PPC ads are a way to do so.
Also, if you want to test your ads in order to determine if you want to push through with it or scrap it all together, you can use PPC ads to do this for you. Through PPC, you can even monitor the clicks that your ads are getting and you can even opt to stop your ads when the charges are getting beyond your budget.
The most important thing that you need to remember in making PPC ads is to put important and relevant keywords in your ads. If you have a good set of keywords, and good ad copy, your website will get a steady flow of traffic. If you are establishing a new website or planning on launching a new product, you can use PPC ads in order to test market it. This will enable you to know if there is a need for your website or the new products that you want to introduce.
If you are already done with testing and determining if there is a demand for your product, this will be the perfect time for you to make the shift from PPC to SEO. Although PPC ads are relatively cheap, the frequency of use for months can really add up and make a dent in your advertising expenses. Once you have the specific keywords which proved to be marketable, you can now optimize your site to include the keywords.
Traditional SEO requires the website owners to have their website content optimized. This is done through developing content for your site which would reflect the specific keywords and phrases that are relevant to your site and at the same time would appeal to the visitors which would lead them to visit your site.
As with any tool, SEO also has a couple of drawbacks and one of them is that it might take a while for your website to get a high ranking. There are two ways which you can do in order to get a high ranking from search engines and these are: optimizing your website and adding links of high ranking sites. In order to do this, you must be able to focus on websites which are relevant to your site and have search engine rankings of 4 and up. If you are optimizing the content, make sure that you do so with text. Spiders, which are programs used by search engines to go from one site to another in order to extract keywords to determine the ranking, will concentrate on the text rather than the graphics and audio of your site. Website content should be at least 250-500 words per page with a steady concentration of the keywords.
Keep in mind that PPC ads usually appear on the ‘sponsored links’ side of the search engine results page, this is a position which most people ignore because it is not the specific site or information that they are looking for. They usually concentrate on the actual results of their search. If you have an optimized site which has a high ranking, you will definitely show up on the top of the results page every time someone will search for the keywords that you have on your optimized site.
Different webmasters with different needs will also make different choices between SEO and PPC. If you have a new website and want to generate traffic fast, then PPC will be the right option for you. If you want to achieve a higher return on investment and receive a high conversion rate then you should choose SEO. Most companies even choose a mixture of both tools to market their website.
