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SEO VS ppc. which is better for your brand
Compare SEO and PPC to determine which is the best solution for your brand.
The best marketing strategy for any business is one which spans a number of touchpoints, embodying not just an omnichannel approach in terms of content placement but appealing to different audiences via different marketing tactics.
SEO and PPC have both become ingrained in the modern marketing professionals vocabulary, with one optimising the organic outreach of a business while the other focuses on a more refined paid approach. What this means is that when it comes to a well-rounded marketing strategy, both SEO and PPC have a crucial role to play.
But what if we told you that you had to choose between one or the other? Which would you pick for your business?
The differences between SEO and PPC
SEO is a tool employed by marketers across businesses and brands in all sectors, which focuses on the organic search ranking of a site and which, over time, enables brands to rank above their competitors. Despite being a free approach to great marketing, SEO takes time to navigate and requires a consistent approach to content creation and keyword research in order to achieve high ranking and keep it.
Conversely, PPC can be instant with regards to its results – although it will come at a cost. PPC takes both time and financial investment in order to master, with brands needing to take the time to understand what kind of ads are the most effective in terms of conversion, where to place ads, and which keywords to use.
So, SEO is a marketing tool that’s used for the long game, capturing organic traffic at no financial cost. PPC is a marketing tool which can generate instant results, and while coming at a cost is a great option for time sensitive campaigns and launches.
The benefits of SEO
SEO is all about increasing the visibility of your brand online, by making small changes to your website and online content which all allow search engines to recognise your value, reputation, and connection to users’ search terms.
Through a combination of long and short-form keywords, targeted and localised language, and of course the creation of genuinely valuable and useful content, an SEO strategy will let Google and other search engines see how well suited you are to the industry you claim to be a part of. As such, your website will appear high up in rankings, sitting below only those paid ads which steal the very top spot.
The benefits of PPC
The overwhelming benefit of PPC is that which we just mentioned – the fact that PPC and paid ads usurp all the organic marketing efforts of other brands and ensure that an advertised website is top of the pack. Now, whether or not consumers choose to heed these ads or instead select a more natural fit is up to them – however, you cannot argue with the visibility that brands using PPC get on search pages.
PPC also allows for a refined degree of targeting in terms of who sees your ads and where, with the targeting function allowing brands to select their audience by demographic and by specific criteria such as age, location, gender, and lifestyle.
The final undeniable benefit of PPC is the speed at which brands which use this marketing tool will see results – with paid campaigns culminating in clicks almost instantly. This makes PPC particularly useful in light of time sensitive campaigns and launches.
Determining which is better for your business or brand
With all that in mind, we return to the original question posed in this article: which is better for your brand? And perhaps more importantly, where do you start in deciding between the two?
In short, the answer depends on the kind of results that you are looking for and what your core motivation is with each marketing campaign and release. If, for example, you want to drive conversion quickly and generate sign ups for an event or spark interest in a seasonal new product, then PPC creates quick results and will allow the word to spread more quickly. If, on the other hand, you are happy to wait for results and want to lay out a sustainable and long term approach to marketing which will culminate in authentic and repeat customers, SEO is very much a long-game style of marketing which helps you to create an effective online presence.
Whatever your aim, the emphasis behind your marketing should always be on the end user and the experience that they are getting. Customer loyalty is very much built on their user experience, with customers just as likely to click through to a competitor site as yours if they are not fully convinced by the quality of experience and value that you offer. In fact, we would even go so far as to say that user experience can impact whether you are better opting for SEO or PPC, assessing the success of both in relation to your target audience and core demographic, to understand which one they are more likely to respond to.
Here at Mitchell & Stones, we offer PPC and SEO support as part of our package of marketing services – working with brands across all sectors to deliver effective campaigns and to refine long term strategies. We also believe that integrating SEO with PPC is the ultimate way for success. For more information on this and our other services, get in touch with the team today.
