Why do people choose SEO over PPC?

Hi bigballin6161,

Smart people do both.

If you have plenty of free time and little money, SEO gives you way to get into the game. But you are right, unless you are unable to get a job or are living hand to mouth you'd be foolish to pass over PPC. In fact, you be foolish to invest too much time in SEO activity without testing with PPC first.

Then there are the get rich quick schemes, scams and fraud that PPC firms won't let you advertise in their programs. They are stuck with SEO as the alternative option.

It really depends on your market. SEO has it's benefits for the hard work placed. Obviously you are there for "free". I use 'free' lightly because it will either cost money or time to get there in reality but your site is deemed more trustworthy.

For example, I would be more likely to trust a product review from the natural results than the paid results if I want an unbiased opinion.

That said, PPC can work WITH SEO for testing purposes.

Don't you hate spending all that time doing SEO on a keyword only to find out that it doesn't yeild the results you were after. You can get an idea on what to expect if you run a PPC campaign for a week and then optimize to reach page one in the organic results.

-Dave

Proper SEO produces long-term results. Well-done PPC produces high-yield but short-term results. The best long-term strategy is to use both -- the notion that the two are opposing approaches to the same goal is simply incorrect.


Frank

I have always been intimated by PPC. If you don't know what you are doing, its a quick way to loose money fast! SO I have always stayed away from PPC. On the other hand, I have wasted LOTS of money paying for all kinds of SEO programs with little success as well.

What I have learned the HARD way is that you have to take the time and learn for YOURSELF how PPC and SEO work. Throwing money at all kinds of programs and outsourcing all kinds of SEO work is also a one-way road to financial ruin.

Its one thing to pay someone to set up a blog or a website, but its a totally different thing to setup on online business. You need a strategy and a platform that will help you do both in a way that is gradual, structured, systematic and affordable.

Now that I actually know what I am doing, SEO is the best route for me!!!

It is because PPC is delicate one mistake everything gone, in SEO there is a trial and error, and you have a lot of options and and it is quiet enjoyable and challenging to do than PPC.

Both. Do both at the same time.

Use PPC to get traffic while SEO kicks in. Most sites can be easily optimized for both types of traffic.

People pick SEO because it's free, it takes time but it's free and we all like free things lol. 4 years ago when I started I did PPC and failed big time and I haven't used PPC since then.

With PPC, it takes money to make money, and unless your profit margins are high, and you can guarantee a good conversion rate, it may not work out for you. PPC is excellent for consumer products that convert well, but for sites that earn through advertising, it isn't cost effective. PPC can also become incredibly competitive. One of the campaigns I run has clicks which cost €11 a pop, and I've seen much higher. When you're getting hundreds of clicks a day, it can add up very quickly.

People say SEO is free?!! Really?! If you outsource this then it cost but yes you will not pay for the traffic when it eventually arrives. PPC is expensive and needs a good in depth understanding to get it right. The mix between the 2 is the key..If you have 1 product or service then you are laughing, do a bit of PPC until the SEO is sufficient to take over, but if you have 2000 products you will never rank for all of them a few themes or chosen terms etc so this in when you utilize the PPC to back it up and advertise the rest!!

Many choose PPC to avoid the work SEO requires until they get banned from Adwords, then they begin exploring SEO due to a lack of options.

yes and no...Think of SEO as your long term investment and PPC as the short term..You want to do both cause over time your SEO traffic will grow and it can generate a lot of traffic if you set the strategies right and know what you are doing...I have a case example here at www.marketingignite.com so you can see that this is no bs...However, SEO is an art and a science and you have to know it and breath it...Some stuff you cannot teach cause SEO is an art as well so this comes with experience....

Because it's free. The only real risk is a domain name and your time. (depending on how many SEO guides you purchase )

Having done my own SEO for years, I prefer it because it's controllable. We're a small nonprofit in a niche market. Due to the viewing audience we attract, if I maximized our overall SEO our services would be overwhelmed in a heartbeat.

We walk a tough line between needing an increase in AdSense revenue while avoiding a flood of help requests we could not manage.

Solution? We are creating self help areas - including wizards - that carry pertinent AdSense ads. We are writing more self-help articles with embedded links (i.e. article words and phrases that lead to related info on our site) leading to more pages with pertinent AdSense ads. No Twitter, no Facebook, no Stumbleupon, no RSS feed until the self-help areas are built up another meh ... at least 30%.

I automatically SEO all entry pages and most articles, using copy and paste of keywords and phrases accumulated and tested over the years, along with templates (.dwt).

The biggest leap in viewership came about in 2000 within a week or two of optimizing the <head> </head> HTML: the Meta tags. I followed the instructions at an HTML to go site. Here's a time-tested one: [Google: htmlgoodies].

Little side story: When I started my site back in 1999 (before the current domain name) I was aware that the XXX sites were reeling in the dough. So I paid them a little visit. Blechhh.

But biz is biz. And that's where I found out about SEO HTML tools. Been using them ever since.

Vol

If SEO is costing you more than pay per click advertising then you are doing something wrong!

Saying that I do pay for adwords on keywords that I don't yet rank on. I still make a profit, but will make more money when I can get traffic for free.

The other thing to bare in mind is that if the cost for adwords marketing goes up, your whole business then ceases to exist. Risky strategy to rely on that alone.

The very simple generalisation is:

1) PPC is the short term game

2) SEO is the long term game


Is a matter of choice.

Why are some people marathon runners and others sprinters? Each to their own.

But of course if you can run a marathon AND have a fast kick in a sprint then you could be lethal in a 5k race

SEO is free and long term result. Not only that, its convert pretty good. PPC is just the opposite of that

Free marketing solutions have been more and more effective and attracting for many marketers and it works very well.


Cory Crabb

I work for a multi-site ecommerce firm. We have always done a combination of both organic optimization and paid advertising like ppc. We want the longevity of organic search growth and the quick revenue of ppc. We've even started dabbling in the social media domain. If you're a business owner or a marketing professional you'd be foolish to not explore several paths for getting the word out.

most people choose to do SEO because money wont be much an issue, its time consuming yet the benefits is for long term..

SEO and PPC should not be mutually exclusive. If you SEO optimize your web site for your targeted keywords, and build backlinks to it, quality score for your landing pages will increase and cost will decrease. SEO optimization improves PPC effectiveness.

SEO is a kind process that gives results that continues for a long time ,Although PPC is for Instant result and not effective for long time

PPC is temporary solution and SEO is a long term solution to ones marketing efforts. PPC costs more and your expenditure will increase drastically; but, SEO is cost-effective and reliable.

The best option is to do both. SEO creates useful backlinks to your site result in consistent, however minimal and slow traffic coming in, this also boosts your search engine rank.

PPC is for instant results, the main reason people don't use this is because of the cost, clicks can be massively expensive in certain markets. This is however quick & effective if you find decent keywords.

I also prefer SEO, long lasting results than PPC, PPC is much expensive than SEO, it gives traffic but that traffic has much high bounce rate. SEO is slow but conversion rate of SEO is better than PPC.