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May 16, 2019

SEO or PPC? Which is right for your business? Our short guide gives you the pros and cons of both SEO and PPC.

SEO

Pros

1. Longevity
   Once indexed by Google, your SEO content will mature over time - By including content, such as blogs, which will be indexed by Google, you can ensure that your site will show up for a long time. This way it won’t get lost whereas, with PPC, as soon as your budget runs out or you finish a campaign, your ad will disappear.. Your SEO will mature over time in the sense that your website is more likely to hold its place within a search result, the longer that it has been indexed and the more frequently you update your website with unique content.
2. Trust
   Statistics show that people trust SEO results more than PPC results - It is much more likely that people will click on SEO results than PPC Ad results. Searchers are often cautious about clicking on PPC Ads because of the belief that they are sometimes unsafe to click on, or simply that companies who have earned their SEO listing on page 1 are more credible than those who are paying for it.
3. Credibility
   SEO builds trust and credibility with search engines - By regularly updating general site content, as well as keywords, and working towards great SEO, you are showing search engine algorithms that your website is active and that it is still relevant to the search results that you are showing up in.

Cons

1. Time
   Results aren’t instant - SEO takes time to develop, and so you will not be able to see instant results in terms of your website’s search ranking. By regularly updating site content, such as writing unique blog articles, your SEO will improve and you will likely start to see improvements in your website search results. However, this is a gradual process and something that takes time and effort to improve.
2. No Guarantee
   Page one results are not guaranteed - Your SEO search result all depends on how well your site is optimised. If your site is optimised poorly, you will not rank highly. However, if your website has great SEO, you are much more likely to get a page one ranking!
3. Constant Maintenance
   SEO needs constant maintenance - In order to keep your site ranking highly, you need to regularly update your site content and your keywords. This can be a time-consuming process.

PPC

Pros

1. Instant Results
   As soon as you start your PPC campaign, you will see results - PPC provides your site with a high ranking instantly. You will show up in the ad results on page 1, drawing people’s attention straight to your website.
2. Flexibility
   It is flexible -You are able to decide when you want your ad to show up within search results, and when you don’t want it to. This is useful for targeting specific audiences as you can ‘plant’ your ad within search results when you believe that your target audience is likely to be most active.
3. Statistics
   You can measure how beneficial it is to you - PPC tools such as Google Ads offer an ‘analytics’ section where there are numbers and figures which will clearly help you to determine whether your ad is running successfully or not. It is much harder to obtain data from Google Analytics in regards to your SEO which is as specific.

Cons

1. Pricey
   PPC can become very expensive very quickly - If you do not set a budget of how much you would like to spend, PPC could become very expensive as you bid against competitors for the top spot.
2. ROI
   You might not always see a strong return on investment - Depending on the product/service that you are offering, an ad may be financially unwise. If you are selling items that are relatively cheap and the cost per click for your targeted keywords is more expensive than the money you make on your products, it is unwise that you put out an ad because you will not see a strong return on investment.
3. Trust
   Statistics show that people trust PPC less than SEO - There is a belief that PPC ads are sometimes unsafe to click on. Statistics show that only 10-15% of people will click on ads within search results! This, however, is untrue.

Here at The Creation Lab, we recommend that you have a heavier focus on SEO. However, PPC can be useful in many situations, such as targeting specific keywords and can be a great assist for new businesses while they wait for their SEO to develop, helping to build your online presence in the meantime. PPC combined with brilliant social media and some print design pieces can be a great structure to an online marketing campaign. This is the approach that we are taking with our newly launched Great Creative Subscriptions - it really works!

The Creation Lab specialises in SEO, video production and website design in Kent and London.

If you have a project you'd like to work on with us, then we'd love to hear from you! Please feel free to get in touch here, or give our friendly team a call on 0800 644 7070.

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