Are you considering hiring someone to do SEO work on your website so that you rank higher in search results, but wondered if your money might be best spent doing Google AdWords? Here is short to-the-point article from Bruce Clay AU blog writer, Marc Elison, “SEO vs PPC” considering this very topic. He gives a brief explanation of SEO, PPC and the differences between the two – a great summary for the newcomer.
Having created and managed literally hundreds of Google AdWords campaigns and somewhere in the neighborhood of 100,000 keywords, I can tell you that PPC is not a great substitute for good web page content. As Marc covers in his article, PPC may be an immediate short-term solution to your web traffic needs, but the sad reality is that you may end up paying BIG $ for your PPC campaigns. This is especially true if your web content is substandard. Depending on your market, there are companies out there bidding $15 a click on general keywords. Can you imagine paying $15 just to get someone to click on your paid ad when they search for the phrase “trek bike”? Now imagine that 100 people did this and only one of them purchased a $500 Trek.
Well, for very popular words linking to landing pages with very poor content, PPC can be a very expensive substitute for basic SEO. You need to have decent content on the landing page unless you want end up in a situation where you pay more for your ads than the expected revenue from PPC generated sales. Yes, SEO can take a long time get your pages to rank in the search engines. Yes, PPC can get you immediate, measurable results. So, I submit to you that you should really do both. If you need fast results, definitely do PPC. However, if you want to get the best results from your PPC while getting the most out of your limited budget, do some SEO first.
Obviously you already have a website or else you wouldn’t be considering SEO. Look at your potential landing pages. Do those pages have the keywords your customers will be searching for? If not, add those key words and phrases by working them into the content. Do this regardless and certainly before you consider starting a PPC campaign. Once those keywords are in your page, start your PPC activities and keep and eye on your organic search rankings.
I should clarify what I mean when I said you should do both SEO and PPC…
If you come to the conclusion that you want to spend your marketing dollars on PPC, you should first do a little SEO on your own to make your web site a little more effective. It needs to be done to make your Ads more effective anyway.
If you decide NOT to do PPC, then your SEO consultant can do the content revisions for you.
I do recommend that the person(s) who know the most about the product or service you offer online be involved in the SEO process. If you consultant is not familiar with the business, they miss some of the keywords your key customers may be using.