What is more competitive today: PPC or SEO?

I'd agree with your sentiments. There is so much PPC competition these days that unless you're very good at what you do it's very difficult to make a living out of it.

I think SEO is still easier as it requires more work and the results are not immediate. People are after instant gratification and thus PPC is more attractive option.

One thing is true for both: go for the long tail keywords, you will enjoy much better results.

Probably because PPC is faster, instant results, can manage MANY campaigns at once, see a higher return if you stay in the game, and can directly increase rapidly based on how much money and effort you exert. With SEO you have to wait, have to test, and still have to stay in the game just to stay on your game. People want to retire now, not later. It's hard to manage many SEO campaigns successfully unless you have a decent team, but with PPC, you can have a smaller team (or just a select few) and still achieve better results. But most people that start a PPC campaign use basic seo steps/ideas in setting up many of their pages I'd say.

I agree that both are very competitive these days, maybe PPC even more so. However I think that SEO provides much more satisfaction. Being able to slowly build your website up and watch it climb the organic search rankings. It provides much more of a satisfying feeling to me then simply launching a PPC campaign and paying for your rankings.

The answers in this thread seem to reflect personal perception rather than solid and reliable statistics. I think many people out there have been distorted by the hype and energy waved around by self titled "Guru's" teaching PPC strategies. They may have come up with a few distinctions and tactics marketing themselves well through JV's about PPC strategies but the truth is, according to the Marketing Sherpa Search Bench Mark Study for 2008, PPC was rated the fourth (4th) highest on the list of ROI marketing tactics.

The report supported by other online research suggests that SEO, overall, overshadows PPC. If any of you have seen the 'eye tracking' studies that were published to the public a few years back, recent research finds little difference between the two. People are still more inclined to click the organic search results rather than what they see on the right. Especially in the first, second, even to the eighth instance.

What makes PPC more competitive over SEO is it's obvious reputation for speed of results. I'm not an advocate of PPC, in-fact I think it's a great way to test keywords before embarking on a long-term keyword strategy. PPC can target many keywords in a very short period of time, so long as you have the finances to invest. SEO requires patience and persistance, but the rewards are long-term and best of all free!

Both are related .. cant distinguish them

At the moment I'm trying to master seo and I can see the real benefits of it. If you do it right then thats "free" traffic for a long time. If you got a deep pocket then go for PPC but at the same time do some or hire your seo work out. Man I'm craving the days I get 100 unique visitors per day.

importance depends on the business and your intentions.

If you have a website which has zillions of competitors and mostly dominated by borkerage firms, insurance agencies etc.. SEO is just a waste of time... their search spots r more or less fixed based on their brand reputation etc.. gone are the days when you could ping the crap out of a site and make it goto the top....

if you want instant visitors.. you will have to take the expensive route of PPC
if you have patience and the ability to work hard - SEO will be good for you....

I feel SEO is taking over because people that own a business know that they will be in business for a long time so they say ok I will build my SEO and in 6 months I will start getting FREE traffic.

seo is free but less predictable because your website can listed one day and gone the other day. ppc costs some money but is very cost effective and bring quality traffic to your website.

My strategy is always to start with seo first, then when you see your first sale coming in, you know you hit a gold mine and you can reinvest the profits into ppc.

Bear in mind that you should always turn off your content network as this will dramatically increase your CTR and improve your quality score.

To me its depends, Combination of both makes it prefect, i will start with PPC then SEO

In my experience I would have to say PPC is very competative these day's especially with the company I am with...... the competition is fierce, at least I know there is a high demand for the products and services.

seo requires lots and lots of hardwork.. PPC requires of course many pennys

My personal irony is I truly felt investing/spending money to get traffic and find money machines (put 100$ in get 120$+ out) was the way to go and what I went after the most. Along the way I became really good at SEO without even noticing, while ALL my PPC & adware efforts have been COLOSSAL failures. You can't tweak dismal campaigns, CTR and all that, and all my numbers have always been way below the so called "norm".

As for SEO, bottom line it's not that complicated at all! Google has bumped me up and down in a way that makes it head scratching, but overall I've got good rankings in Google but mostly in Yahoo. Then again, top 3 in Yahoo on VERY competitive and searched keywords have given me 2 clicks a day lately. In fact, I'm so tired of all this crap for the first time in my life I feel like quitting.

I personally think SEO is pretty much easier. But if you have budget then you shud opt for PPC. But anyhow, SEO is a king as compared to PPC