In today’s competitive business landscape, relying solely on content marketing and social media efforts may not be sufficient to establish your brand presence, particularly if you operate as a local company or in an industry with intense competition. It becomes imperative to enhance your visibility on search engine results, particularly if you find yourself in the latter scenario.
The problem is that people might get confused about the difference between SEO and PPC and when to use each one of them. If this applies to you, don’t worry.
In this article, we will show you what each one of them is and how to use each kind of strategy. Follow each step carefully, and you’ll instantly notice an increase in your business’s performance on search results.
What Is SEO
Search-Engine Optimization (or SEO) is a method companies use to increase organic traffic and generate more leads for their business or product being announced. Each objective requires a different SEO strategy, but each will impact the organic search results related to your website.
Strategies like keyword research and link-building are vital if you want to get a good SERP score, which might be a decisive factor in putting your company ahead of the competition. This is one of the reasons why organizations of all kinds and industries create SEO and PPC teams focused on developing effective strategies for gathering search traffic.
What Is PPC
On the other hand, pay-per-click (or PPC) is a digital marketing technique that focuses on promoting content with the help of money. When doing PPC advertising, your website won’t be featured in organic listings but in a section dedicated to ads.
Utilizing PPC advertising can yield significant benefits, particularly in terms of pinpointing target keywords. By employing PPC marketing, you can effectively identify these keywords and subsequently allocate resources towards optimizing your content through SEO to prominently showcase these terms. This strategic approach ensures that your digital marketing efforts align with user search preferences, enhancing the overall visibility and relevance of your content.
PPC can also be called paid search, an investment focused on short-term results. The most used PPC tool is Google Ads.
Differences Between PPC and SEO Strategies
Both strategies impact your browser’s search engine results page, but the two approaches also have numerous differences.
These differences make one better than the other depending on your objective and goals with search marketing. Here are some of these differences:
Technique
SEO can use numerous techniques that will differ depending on your final objective when using your SEO strategy. It aims to increase both the quality and quantity of the traffic on your website. Unlike PPC ads, this is done organically, and the Google search console recognizes you as a reference in your acting field.
Results on Search Engines
Another significant difference between the two techniques is how each behaves in the SERPs. The PPC campaign will rank your website at the top, but it will be identified as an advertisement for those who see it.
On the other hand, SEO campaigns focus on making your website appear right below the advertisements but in an organic way. If it is one of the first organic results, Google Analytics judges your website as a reference and won’t be highlighted as an announcement.
Action Time
The action time of the two techniques is also completely different. On PPC strategy, it starts the moment you put money into the ads console. Once you do this and fill in the requested data, the search engine results pages will begin displaying your content at the top of the pages.
The problem is that once the promotion stops, the decrease in access numbers is as instantaneous as the beginning of your campaign. These campaigns have a short lifetime, and so do their results.
For SEO data, your business might need months or even years before seeing the expressive results of the investment. But its effects tend to last much longer.
If you stop investing in keyword data research and other SEO techniques, it will take a long time until you see your website decrease in rank. Its actions have a long lifetime and effectiveness.
Similarities Between PPC and SEO
PPC and SEO teams might adopt different strategies to achieve their objectives, but they also have much in common. We will show you some similarities between them and how both SEO and PPC data are used in these cases.
Here are some details they have in common:
Main Objective
One typical detail when comparing PPC advertising and SEO strategies is the main objective of both actions, with the primary goal of gathering traffic to your online business.
The only difference will be the methods used to achieve this objective. While paid search ads highlight your business on the top of the pages, the SEO plan focuses on a slow but organic growth of traffic and clicks.
Same Keywords
Both techniques are keyword-driven and, in most cases, will use the same keywords to reach the target audience. The difference in search terms used is that PPC keywords are used mainly to identify the most searched terms when looking for the product listed by your company.
On the other hand, when doing SEO, keyword research serves mainly to understand which words and terms can be used on your landing pages or meta descriptions that will make your score increase in the search engine. Organic listing depends directly on how often these terms appear on your content.
SEO and PPC Strategies to Make Your Business Skyrocket
Although most companies work with one of the marketing solutions, there are numerous ways both techniques can work together to create even more solid actions. We will show some strategies that work with either one technique or both together.
Make sure to take a look at each one to see how they can impact your business and if they are the right solution for achieving your goals. Here are some of the most common strategies:
Use PPC to Identify Keywords
This is one of the most common ways PPC and SEO work together. Conducting keyword research is one of the most important steps when building quality SEO for Google or other search engines.
You can use paid search advertising and identify the most relevant keywords and short terms typed by the users. After that, you might start building content around these terms and keywords.
Both techniques here will work together, complementing each other. Doing this can also drastically decrease the cost-per-acquisition of your company.
Work With Both Methods Simultaneously
Many companies usually invest in one of the techniques, prioritizing either SEO or PPC. Working with the two of them simultaneously can also grant numerous benefits to your company and increase your organic ranking at Google with time.
If your company is new or having difficulty generating new leads, you can use Google ads and other tools to help. These visitors, along with well-structured keyword research, can help your business to rank better. You can start with paid advertising while you build SEO actions. With this, you’ll always be on top of SERPs through paid promotion until you reach the top of the organic rankings.
Use the Same Strategy for Both Techniques
Although they are different, using the same strategy when building actions for both options can bring benefits. Most companies that work with PPC ads and SEO simultaneously prioritize creating one strategy and executing them throughout the channels.
As we mentioned, all your actions must align with your main objective. All you need to do is adapt your strategy to the channel and tool used.
For example, if you run a local business and want to increase the visibility of your services for people close to you, you can work with a strategy using PPC and SEO together. Through paid advertising, you can create demographic settings for your target audience.
Along with the paid promotion, you can also work with keyword research and other SEO activities to reach the same audience. This way you can have both techniques using the same strategy and working on the same objective.
Ensure your goals are clear, and choose the right KPIs to measure their results. SEO and PPC will constantly complement each other throughout the process.
Use SEO to Lower PPC Costs
Both strategies focus on gathering traffic to your website, and the primary way to do it is by offering answers to the users’ main questions. If you don’t know which keywords to use and what your potential customers are looking for, gathering them through PPC marketing can become more expensive.
With the help of SEO, you can use organic search to better understand your targets’ behavior and find keywords that are more likely to work in your PPC campaign. This integrated search strategy combines both techniques for a more effective result and solid actions.
Why Hiring an SEO Marketing Agency Is Important
SEO and PPC are not tools you learn to use overnight, which is one of the numerous reasons companies hire professionals to develop their strategies. By leaving the task to a marketing agency, you ensure that a professional with vast experience in both techniques will plan every detail of your campaign.
GamerSEO’s professionals will dive into your goals and build the best course of action to achieve them. Becoming a partner grants you more than just keyword research and articles.
You’ll have access to constant support and professionals available to help you reach the desired audience and generate leads more efficiently.
Most importantly, we ensure that your website skyrockets to the top of SERPs thanks to increased organic and paid traffic. That, in turn, translates into more potential clients. Become part of GamerSEO today, and let’s build the perfect strategy together.
Time to Start Your SEO and PPC Efforts
Both SEO and PPC campaigns can be valuable methods to reach new audiences and gather new potential customers for your website. Whether through organic or paid actions, the most crucial part is that your strategy and action must be aligned with your company’s main objective.
Even though they are different tools and their processes can also differ, they can be used together for building powerful campaigns and constantly complementing one another. There is no right or wrong on which one to use. Everything will depend on what you want to achieve.
Remember that hiring marketing companies for these actions ensures the best results out of every step. Creating these strategies takes time and knowledge. By leaving it to a professional, you know that everything will be in good shape and the developed activities will bring a positive impact to your website and company.
Now that you know everything you need, it is time to start building your SEO and PPC efforts. Follow all the steps carefully, and you’ll be able to create solid strategies.
A PPC specialist who started with organic social media. For several years, the core of his activities are:- Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, Meta Ads, TikTok Ads, Twitter Ads, Linkedin Ads. He has led campaigns with a global reach, e.g. for FootballTeam, G2A, ETOTO, as well as many smaller campaigns in the sports, construction and financial industries. Has full focus on ROAS. Privately, a fan of football, history of wars and Star Wars.