What is more cost effective SEO or PPC

29 replies
  • SEO
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What is a more effective method to pay for quality SEO or PPC? I ask this because with Google changing their search engines constantly, cant they just make all your SEO work disappear over night?
#cost #effective #ppc #seo
  • Profile picture of the author linkassistant
    You need to do maths in every case. Here's an approximate way how you can do this How to split your budget between SEO and PPC | PPC Hero®
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  • Profile picture of the author online only
    Well, the thing is you can do SEO with basically minimal costs. It takes time, but it's completely manually doable. You don't need any tools, you can write the content by yourself etc.

    Of course, it will take a lot of time, but it won't cost you much. You can speed up the process by buying scraper tools (only for data), by getting spyglass/ahrefs subscription, getting a decent VA etc.

    PPC is basically the opposite. You can get your results way more faster, but it will also cost you a lot more. IMHO, if you don't have free funds for just "burning & testing" then there's no point to try Adwords. I would say save at least $5k before you dive into Adwords.

    I remember my first campaign on Adwords. I spent approx 4k on the first month, while I got back only 2k - it was purely testing, getting knowledge etc - I knew that I won't get a positive ROI just so fast since I was a semi-rookie.

    The second month was better, I was already breaking even. I tweaked my campaigns/ads/tracked even more.

    On the 3rd month I already got a decent ROI and decent $$$ which I quickly re-invested to get even more clicks. It's extremely exciting while SEO might be boring as hell (maybe it's just me).

    Anyway, stick with SEO unless you have a lot of money and time to burn & learn the basics of PPC/adwords.
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    • Profile picture of the author Sclark
      I would doubt you can do SEO with minimum costs. Even if you have all the required skills to do it on your own, like writing, strategic/analytical mindset, web development, your time really costs a lot. In fact, you can be employed instead and get a huge paycheck - so I disagree SEO is something equal to free.

      I'd agree with Linkassistant - you have to make calculations for your keywords in each particular case and see what is more cost-effective. Great post btw!
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      • Profile picture of the author online only
        Originally Posted by Sclark View Post

        I would doubt you can do SEO with minimum costs. Even if you have all the required skills to do it on your own, like writing, strategic/analytical mindset, web development, your time really costs a lot. In fact, you can be employed instead and get a huge paycheck - so I disagree SEO is something equal to free.

        I'd agree with Linkassistant - you have to make calculations for your keywords in each particular case and see what is more cost-effective. Great post btw!
        Well, it depends how much do you value your time in $$$.

        I spent approx 350 hours building a site that is now making me over 10k p/m. I know it won't last forever, but I think I'm already getting pretty decent ROI here. I only spent about $500 for content, design & tools. If I divide 10k with 350h it it's $25 per hour. When the time goes past, it doubles-triples up which is insane ROI IMHO since it's passive-income.

        It also depends where you are living tho. I'm living in baltics where average salary is approx $900. Brain surgeons get approx $4000 p/m and then there is me who is scratching balls and making even more. Not too shabby.

        I'm not trying to brag, but when you do things right from the beginning (keyword research, competitor analyzinig, step by step SEO plan, content creation etc) it can be a very lucrative business "model".

        I'm not encouraging ANYONE to rely on SEO as their income. Always re-invest your money into way more stable businesses/strategies. Heck, you can always flip your sites and go straight into offline business. Anyone who is living off from ranking "niche" sites and not investing the money into different things is a complete fool.
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  • Profile picture of the author godoveryou
    It depends completely on your skill set.
    • If you aren't incredibly familiar with SEO, it's going to cost you a lot of money to become so.
    • If you aren't very familiar with PPC, it's also going to cost you a lot of money to learn the ropes.
    Unfortunately the question is a bit like 'How long is a piece of string?'
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  • Profile picture of the author shazam
    The short answer is both, I've done a more detailed post about it here: SEO versus PPC - IM Ninja - IM Ninja
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  • Profile picture of the author webdevpro
    In most of the cases SEO can be more cost effective compare to PPC as PPC always costs you money and also a low budget in this won't give you any significant return back.
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  • Profile picture of the author schgrv
    Both SEO and PPC can get you on the front page of the search engines in front of your desired audience. But both have pros and cons. Well known SEO resource SEOmoz, recently published an article by the team at Enquisite evaluating the potency of SEO & PPC.
    This article discusses that, organic results are almost 7-8 times more likely to be clicked on than paid search results. That is likely attributed to searchers gradually learning the difference between organic and sponsored results, and recognizing that organic results are typically the more respected resource. However, PPC holds a slight edge in conversion rates, as paid search results are 2 times more likely to convert from the search engine.
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  • Profile picture of the author micksss
    Both can burn you if you don't know what you're doing. I wasted a lot of money in my earlier years with PPC.
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  • Profile picture of the author nik0
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    I lost 10.000's of dollars on PPC and Media Buys, maybe not lost directly but it turned out be a break-even thing.

    If I had spend that money on a solid company that provides SEO services I would've gotten that traffic and even more for a long time to go (back then I had no clue about SEO, talking about 8 years ago) and be able to turn a good profit instead of breaking-even.

    I think PPC can work best for ecommerce sites when you have a huge collection in a certain niche, if you only have certain brands/models you can lose a lot of money as people might not find what they're looking for (that was kind of my problem back then).

    As well as picking keywords too wide and not focusing enough on Geo location but that aside as I also delivered nation wide and got quite a few online orders coming in.

    Right now I feel I can literally dominate that market with SEO and make good money, however an offline business kills all of your freedom so I chose not to and drop shipping isn't really available, I already talked with many old supplies and they considered it not worth it as they already have a good presence their selves on the web.

    "If they wouldn't have found me, they would have found them" is kind of the theory of most wholesalers or large (self importing) web shops.
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  • Profile picture of the author BennyP
    SEO is more cost effective and better in the long run if you get it done right. I do all my own SEO and spend money advertising on Facebook and buying banner ad placements on niche related websites.

    Always start with SEO in my opinion.
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  • Profile picture of the author danlew
    SEO is for long term traffic and may cost less (or even use free methods for this purpose). But for PPC, you may be getting some targeted traffic fast, but not in a long term basis and may be costing you too much money.
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    • Profile picture of the author Sclark
      Originally Posted by danlew View Post

      SEO is for long term traffic
      Oh is it? How about waking up one day to find Google banned you?
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      • Profile picture of the author nik0
        Banned
        Originally Posted by Sclark View Post

        Oh is it? How about waking up one day to find Google banned you?
        Then you can only blame yourself cause you were either to spammy with your link building practices or your website sucked.
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        • Profile picture of the author Sclark
          Originally Posted by nik0 View Post

          Then you can only blame yourself cause you were either to spammy with your link building practices or your website sucked.
          I think you might a bit oversimplifying things here. You're banned because your content and link building suck is not the way how it always work. I believe every site has THAT SOMETHING that can be considered the reason for banning. The point is that sometimes relatively good sites disappear from indexation, while sites with even worse content and link keep ranking.

          In fact, doing SEO, building links even the most legitimate way, is tactics that contradicts Google Guidelines. It doesn't matter if you do it the smartest way: all links should come naturally.

          My point with the previous answer was that no one can rely on organic traffic only cause it's unpredictable to an extent.
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          • Profile picture of the author nik0
            Banned
            Originally Posted by Sclark View Post

            I think you might a bit oversimplifying things here. You're banned because your content and link building suck is not the way how it always work. I believe every site has THAT SOMETHING that can be considered the reason for banning. The point is that sometimes relatively good sites disappear from indexation, while sites with even worse content and link keep ranking.

            In fact, doing SEO, building links even the most legitimate way, is tactics that contradicts Google Guidelines. It doesn't matter if you do it the smartest way: all links should come naturally.

            My point with the previous answer was that no one can rely on organic traffic only cause it's unpredictable to an extent.
            Then how do you explain that my own personal sites never ever get penalized?

            While there are plenty of things that I do wrong (but Google probably doesn't count that), for example using way too cheap content that's full of mistakes (talking about my first 10 sites here). Now I use better content just to be sure but it never stopped me from ranking well. Just meaning to say that my sites are definitely not perfect and still I get away with it every single time.
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  • Profile picture of the author RyanLB
    I would say its entirely keyword dependent. For someone just starting out and trying to figure out the ropes of Internet Marketing, SEO would be the easiest way to get involved with minimal investment. Most, if not all SEO tasks can be learned and applied easily. PPC is something that requires a lot more marketing knowledge from the very get go.
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  • Profile picture of the author hngems
    PPC's true strengths are its speed and expansiveness. With a PPC campaign, you can be on the first page for a multitude of targeted terms within a day. However, the terms can cost anywhere from pennies to many dollars per click; also, for a PPC campaign to be done correctly, it's usually best to hire a firm that can manage it full time. This can mean that PPC campaigns can get very expensive, very quickly - especially when done correctly.
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  • Profile picture of the author Amandasimmons
    If I was running a blog or something on that line, I'd be thinking of doing SEO and other ways of generating traffic (social media marketing, comment posting on blogs and forums and social bookmarking/PR)
    But given the condition that I had a newly launched ecommerce/affiliate website, I'd definitely try PPC.
    Paid traffic is OK but you need to have a strong tool like Exolevel. I'll not waste my money on buying fake traffic.
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  • Profile picture of the author svetod
    For me the best way for generating quality traffic in the short and long term is PPC.
    If you know how to build your campaigns, you can earn really big amounts!
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    • Profile picture of the author online only
      Originally Posted by svetod View Post

      For me the best way for generating quality traffic in the short and long term is PPC.
      If you know how to build your campaigns, you can earn really big amounts!
      This is true. With PPC you don't have to worry about algo changes.
      The only thing that may get you worried is economic downturn + competitors who are outbidding you.
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      • Profile picture of the author svetod
        Originally Posted by online only View Post

        This is true. With PPC you don't have to worry about algo changes.
        The only thing that may get you worried is economic downturn + competitors who are outbidding you.
        That's correct, but bids are not the most important factor in PPC. If you build strong campaigns with high QS, you can be on Top position and paying less than the guy who is on the last position.
        It's all about how you build and manage your campaigns.
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  • Profile picture of the author emilianemilian
    From an agency perspective, where this was tested, PPC and SEO complement each other.

    The differences were quite significant when combining the two, and we registered 20-30% boost in both organic and paid traffic.
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  • Profile picture of the author revenueman
    I'd say if you have the proper tools and can give it time, then SEO is the way. PPC may not directly send targeted traffic to your URL. Also, you have soe up to date tools such as SEnukeXCR that can boost your performance, again, over time. Nothing is written in stone, and even PPC can go horribly wrong. I use scrapers but email helps too if you have a bulk emailer with email extractor . If you know what most marketers, publishers, or advertisers know, there is NO instant push button system. Just take your time and it will pay off. Also, Google is changing, but utilizing Google Adsense is a great tool to start earning pennies to dimes to dollars.
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  • Profile picture of the author rosemarybroeker
    I have considered that high performing PPC advertisement content is an exceptional beginning stage for Meta portrayal tags. I have likewise discovered that antiquated formed long-tail SEO catchphrase is a gold mine concerning finding negative catchphrases for your PPC campaign. PPC could be incredible for seeding content or seeding link bait especially when you can take advantage of news events.

    Make use of Best Performing PPC Ad Copy to update Your Organic Content Strategy. I think what works for SEO also works for PPC. Join E-Commerce Feeds into Adwords Results where you can link particular product pages to PPC ads. The notice will emphasize the item with reviews, and will take the client straightforwardly to the item page, where a purchase could be made. This is an extraordinary approach to give your existing e-trade endeavors a help.
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  • Profile picture of the author Solomonk
    Both Organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and PPC are used to increase the quality and volume of web site traffic from search engines.But PPC work faster then SEO practices.
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  • Profile picture of the author Henney
    I always believed that SEO is way cheaper than PPC, and I do agree that you can seo with minimal cost but it will take more time
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  • Profile picture of the author paramkumar
    Undoubtedly PPC is costly and SEO is not costly.

    If you want to get instant traffic to your website then go for PPC in which you have to pay lot of money.
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