The nature of SEO involves using crawlers to scan web pages for relevant keywords and then submit data to a website (the landing page). PPC (pay-per-click) on the other hand, is generally a paid service.
Google Ads, for example, is how advertisers can create PPC ads that appear above organic listings in SERPs – Search Engine Results Page.
PPC advertising is tightly connected to PPC bidding and optimization, but that’s already one step too many for this article. Follow the link if you would like to learn more.
What are the advantages of SEO over PPC?
One of the biggest SEO advantages is the so-called organic search engine ranking. These results from a search engine’s crawlers have found that a web page contains relevant keywords.
Search engines, namely Google and Yahoo!, use a special algorithm to rank web pages, determining their “popularity” based on the volume of traffic they receive and how many times the traffic volume is repeated each day.
Because it is a paid service, SEO provides a way for webmasters to ensure that their page appears near the top of the search engine ranking list, guaranteeing them higher visibility for their target keywords.
Avoid Common SEO and PPC Mistakes
One of the biggest mistakes made by SEO experts is focusing on keywords too tightly.
Keywords are crucial for an effective ad campaign, but too many of them can make your ad appear like a sales pitch! Instead, focus on a smaller number of targeted keywords for each of your ads, and make sure that these keywords have enough searches each month to make them effective.
Do Not Use Display Ads Too Often
Display ads are designed to be more temporary than permanent, which means they will rarely produce immediate results.
An SEO expert using display ads is more likely to make money from those ads in the long run because those ads will be on websites with many visitors. However, suppose an SEO expert makes a single PPC mistake and uses a large number of temporary display ads.
In that case, he or she is not going to earn as much money over the long term as an SEO who uses permanent keywords on his or her websites.
Do Not Overlook User-Generated Traffic
One mistake that many people make when comparing SEO and PPC is overlooking the importance of user-generated traffic. In a nutshell, user-generated traffic refers to traffic that comes to your website directly from a visitor’s actions, such as clicking a link or leaving a comment on your blog or website.
Although it may not be as immediately noticeable to advertisers as organic search engine traffic, user-generated traffic is the driving force behind every website’s revenue-generating potential on the Internet.
It is also one of the most important factors in determining an SEO’s ROI, which is why it is so important for an SEO expert to understand user-generated web traffic and understand how the different techniques of SEO can affect it.
Final Thoughts
If you want to get your site noticed on the first page of Google, then making the right keyword choices is critical.
If your site has low conversion rates or no conversions, then those PPC ads you paid for won’t do you any good.
