When Forced to Choose, SEO Trumps PPC

SEO Vs PPC

In a perfect world, online marketers apply every search engine placement or SEO optimization technique available to execute a “no-fail” Internet marketing campaign that converts all viewers into cash paying customers. But in the real world, adopting all forms of SEO and PPC techniques at once can be a costly and time consuming endeavor that is only affordable to major businesses. Sometimes the little guy has to choose.

The Dilemma

The common dilemmas that most start-ups and small businesses face when creating an online marketing strategy is ; What do I do first? PPC or SEO” The choice is yours as PPC and SEO are two incredibly effective techniques that can help you brand your products and services, drive web traffic and increase conversions and ROIs. However, the more experienced and resourceful Internet marketers know that when you have to choose one over the other, SEO is the way to go. Slow and Steady - Wins the Race Remember the story of “the tortoise and the hare”? Well that is a great comparison to the relationship of SEO and PPC. Think of SEO as the tortoise and PPC the hare. Both are heading in the same direction, on the same course, ultimately leading to the same place. The hare is moving at much faster pace -- as do PPC techniques -- but it will cost him in the long run. The tortoise takes his sweet time -- like SEO -- moving slowly along to the same goal as the hare, but he’s making his presence known to all who he meets along the way, while the hare just blows right by them. Sure, you’ll see him at the finish line much quicker than the tortoise, but he hasn’t made any lasting connections along the way.

The Moral of the Story

With PPC you can buy ads that do make it to the search pages much faster than SEO. But there is no guarantee that those ads will still be relevant a year from now, and even today you can’t be sure that each click -- that you pay for -- will result in a conversion. With SEO, it may take a while to get your site to the front page of Google, but when it has, you’ll know it's there for good. Rankings that can be -- or already have been -- converted into cash paying customers. And you won’t be paying for the “window shoppers”. Go Tortoise!