SEO or PPC?

Facebook has made it quite easy to go with social PPC these days but not being keyword based, it's still less effective compared with search PPC

I hate PPC but yes I think that's where things are at currently. Google seems to hate small sites which is fustrating.

PPC if you have the funds. Use SEO just as resource material for the content, like a thesaurus. SEO is nothing to rely on for your main source of traffic, unless you're doing hit and run type junk.

i agree...fb is good but not for keyword ppc. i think the gateway to im is learning keyword research even if you outsource it. keyword research is a must for ppc and for seo.....no way around it............

PPC is scalable while SEO is not. If you rank #1 even on a high-volume keyword then your traffic is still limited. If you want to double your traffic you can't. If you want to double your traffic with PPC you can overnight!

SEO can transform your business into an instant lead generator. Your best way to do that is content marketing and to increase the effectiveness of that is to draw people to your content utilizing sites that will put you in front of millions/billions web users like Twitter PR 10 – Facebook/Linkedin PR 9 (Remember there are are only 10 - PR 10 sites and 100 – PR 9 sites in the world.)

You want to create the illusion to followers, Facebookers, Linkers or just general readers that you are a thought leader. You created that by blogging, writing magnetizing, content or sharing thought leaders content that draw traffic and make people want to link back to you. That will drive massive traffic to your site 100% proven

PPC depends on some SEO anyway because of quality scores. But building a business dependent on organic (luck) traffic is nothing short of insane. You have zero control over algorithms - and that traffic can be pulled out from under you over night.

PPC traffic in your analytics also provides keyword data instead of [not provided] data from organic.

Driving controlled targeted traffic to your site via PPC will give you true keyword data, including search volume, ctr and conversions. Only THEN put SEO effort in on the known keywords that convert to get some free organic traffic as a bonus, but not live or die.

Did you know that 40% of Google traffic goes to the top three ad spots, for key terms that have high commercial intent?

this tells us a couple of things. Number one, ignore paper click at your own detriment. Number two, there's still a lot of traffic to be had in SEO.

I have personally found add words to be much easier to delegate. It's a simpler system that can easily be handled by a competent outsourcer. SEO on the other hand is a more complex game that requires more love and attention. I devote more of my personal time to making sure that myself and my clients are doing well on the SEO front.

I've been an SEO expert for years and every one of my website benefits highly as a result of that. I rank well for a multitude of keywords and get hundreds of thousands of FREE visits every month.

Anybody who tells you SEO isn't worth it probably hasn't achieved the position before. Yes, it's a gajillion times harder than PPC but yes, it's worth it. I mean, who wouldn't want all those free hits? Certain keywords can cost you $1/click with PPC but with SEO, it's totally free.

Everyone complaining about Google being hard to predict or having algorithms that don't support the little guys doesn't know what they're doing. Yes, it's true in SOME cases, but not all. Many of my websites have not been altered for years and they still rank well. The bottom line is, if you're going to game the system instead of doing truely organic SEO, then yes, you do risk a chance of getting downranked with each new Google update. But if you're doing things the proper way, you'll have no worries of that. In fact, your rankings will probably IMPROVE with each new update...which is exactly what happens to my websites.

My suggestion is to learn how to do SEO correctly and then use that to your advantage. This knowledge alone has probably saved me thousands of dollars in PPC.

I'm surprised by some of the negativity towards SEO here, and I'm wondering if I'm imagining something different? I've found that writing good blog content that's relevant in our niche, for instance, gives us lots of hits, clickthroughs to the main site, and ultimately, paying conversions. It's a strategy that works.

If you're talking about indiscriminate link-farming, etc, then yeah, I imagine Google would punish that. Isn't the point of SEO to put out stuff that people want to see when they search for it?

-v

Speaking from a perspective of new websites, without a network. I think after you use proper white hat SEO practices to build your website, you should advertise as much as is profitable for you. This maximizes what you have already built. Then you should create more pages and market that as well.

In my opinion SEO alone, these days, is not enough. maybe if you include a large Social Media marketing campaign it will be, but plain SEO takes a very long time, and you can't catch the competition with it alone.

Many on here promote SEM (and call it SEO), I am afraid to do SEM myself, I am absolutely sure it works if done correctly, but incorrectly is a disaster. I am trying to build an actual business, I have stock, employees, an office and other things, so I cant afford to gamble.

Real SEO is a must, and PPC is not the only kind of advertising, this shouldn't really be an either or type of decision, you should include everything you can think of, from Blog banners, to maybe even sponsoring kid's soccer teams.

Anyone that says SEO is a waste of time, or is not scalable, has no clue what they are talking about. SEO has certainly changed, but when done properly still gives you a ginormous ROI. Of course you shouldn't depend on SEO solely...dah. If you want to succeed long term you have to diversify your traffic, whether it be PPC, SEO, media buys, social media etc..

SEO isn't a bad thing or a waste of time. As long as:

A) You use it for bonus traffic. Not life or death of your business traffic. Just search this forum for those tear filled posts of those who built their "businesses" on the foundation of sand that is organic traffic.

B) You don't build your business dependent on it...since you have zero control over constantly moving organic rankings/traffic.

C) You do PPC first, to determine the true traffic data AND which are really your keywords that are worth putting full SEO effort into.

blah blah blah, if you don't build your business on SEO "obviously has never ranked" and you aren't as good as me blah blah blah etc. etc. ~~ so full of it.

Controlled targeted convertible paid traffic can run LAPS around SEO very quickly and without worrying about it disappearing in your sleep.

SEO for organic rankings should be a supplement to actual controlled paid traffic. Basic common sense.

I go to the SEO not in PPC because PPC required money.It is a paid link but seo is free to generate backlink and it is very effective for long periods of time.

PPC is the best source to get the real visitors. The display ads of the Google Adword is one of the powerful tools which helps to increase the website sales.

Doubling PPC traffic overnight isn't possible for all businesses. I have managed many local business PPC programs for many years and there are only so many people looking for an "accountant" or a "plumber" on any given day in a city of a few 100 thousand people. It's easy to max out all the traffic AdWords can give you.

What I noticed in 2013 is that almost every business niche we manage the cost per click almost doubled. Thus the cost per lead almost doubled.

We will be putting increased focus on SEO again (after a 18-24 month hiatus) for 2014. SEO starts looking very attractive again when a clients cost per lead jumps from about $30 a lead to $60 per lead.

PPC can provide you clear idea which keywords converts for your business which are just to place in showcase yet they are competitive. so better to do PPC for some time frame thereafter you can go for organic SEO .

According to me, SEO and PPC both are important. Both techniques helps to receive traffic from search engines.

Definitely PPC if you have money for invest, here is simply reason why PPC - it is unlimited traffic when you have enough money to invest.

"Imagine how much income from paid traffic you're leaving on the table. Sad."

- Gary, I think you're trying to make a comparison of PPC success vs SEO success and totally not getting what I'm benefitting from. My SEO success benefits more than PPC ever could. And I know because I am regularly hired to do both for my clients. And I can see in the both the short-term and long-term which results best. And I do it again and again for a wide variety of industries and under different budget ranges.

Right now, for my MAIN website....that is, my MAIN business and source of internet income. I dominate niche so thoroughly that if you so much as mention my industry keyword in a BROAD usage, or short-tail, or long-tail, whether through analytical well-though-out handpicked choices from Google Trends, or simple a random combination of keyword that you might dig up in your head....my site EASILY shows up multiple times on the first page of Google search results.

And not only am I on the first page but often the first 2-3 results within the TOP 5 results on the first page. And for many of the MOST FAVORABLE terms in my industry, I easily outrank Wikipedia, Amazon, Yelp, and whatever else giant directory that may be hogging the top spots.

And I managed to do all this ORGANICALLY and without requiring a constant effort, or budget set aside. From a single keyphrase alone (not even my top one), I pull 5,000 CLICKS every month. And I managed achieved the same success with dozens of other keyphrases. And I get all this traffic absolutely FREE! FREEEEEEEE! FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

And you're going feel sorry for me because I didn't do PPC?

No, my friend. I feel sorry for you. It doesn't matter how successful your PPC campaign might be. At your best success, your links are going to be sitting in the blindspots...where users don't like to look...which don't carry as much authority and favorability to web audiences. And you are going to PAY for these spots. And it is YOU that has to come up with all sorts of keyword strategies so that you can beat around the bush and pay less money for favorable keyphrases.

You pay more money for less clicks and less keyphrases to hold maybe ONE POSITION in an AD POSITION on the search engine results...whereas I...pay ZERO MONEY to hold several on the first page...and again, I completely dominate the niche.


Also...I'm sorry, but you're not an expert in SEO.

I'll believe that you have 20 years of experience, I don't think you would lie about that. But in no way are you're going to convince that you know SEO as well as I do (I'm not even sure you know PPC as well as I do...but it's ok, we don't need to go there). I'll reply to your thoughts and tell you how it works for me.



"But you don't control your placement."

Ooooh, good one. With PPC, you can just pay your way to the top. Pay more than the next guy and you "WIN" for sure, right? And with SEO...you could do a ton of work but there's no guarantee than you'll get the top position. Makes sense.

Here's how I see it. Both PPC and SEO are a gamble. PPC, it's a smaller gamble because you get to see right away if the being on top actually brings results. SEO, is a much larger gamble because you have to spend a lot of time before getting to the top and seeing if it brings results.

Well for me...if you don't know your market and/or you're a very small fish in a big pond, then yes, doing PPC is probably better. But when it comes to longterm and getting the most rewards possible...SEO easily beats PPC. The "you don't control your placement" becomes a moot point because in the long run, assuming you knew how to do both SEO and PPC correctly...you would definitely achieve the favorable SEO rankings for sure. Yes, some industries take more time but the benefits are certainly there.



"You can't honestly tell me that all of your SEO targeting converts as expected."

- Well, first off... I can. I'm an expert, that's what experts do. Clients come to me with their budgets and expectations and I tell them HOW MUCH and HOW LONG. I have the experience to know if it's an easy job or a big job. I don't freak out or cry or quit when I'm not yet successful yet because I have far very realistic expectations about time & cost. It might not always be 100%, but it needs to be very close to that...personally I feel anybody who delivers less than 95% in the field of SEO is totally not an expert.

I think most people underestimate the amount of work they have to do in SEO, and then cry and quit when it doesn't go their way. Additionally, I think they don't even know how to do it. So first you have to know what is required...and then you have to know how to do it. So there are 2 different failures that happen there.

So going back to what you said...I'm going to tell you straight up...ALMOST ALL my SEO projects convert exactly as expected. Now of course, I'm not gonna go out there and pick fights with Amazon on the rankings or kill myself to be #1. But getting to the #4 or #5 spot is totally doable for many industries. I have a hand in many of these difficult industries myself. But the bottom line is...it's totally doable and I've been paid small fortunes by clients to make these "miracles" happen. So I can say it quite confidently that yes, TOTALLY DOABLE. Like...it's that easy for me. I'm not a self-proclaimed genius, I just know how to do it, ok?



"Using PPC, you've got ALL SORTS of data."

Ok...this line right here makes me doubt your technical ability. Here's why...

There are tons of helpful data online in regards to figuring out how to succeed with SEO and PPC. Both are different strategies to achieving the same goal (building quality traffic).

With PPC, you basically build the traffic by going through Google's adwords program and looking at all the helpful indicators of price, metrics, and geographical location, and language, and suggested alternatives, etc, etc....and then targeting keywords you think best fit the audience you're going for. Obviously here...Google is going to give you a pretty little tool because they want you to spend money doing PPC.

Now with SEO, it's not the same. Google doesn't readily give you as much free information...but nonetheless the helpful data DOES EXIST but requires more technical ability to get to that. For example with SEO...the first thing I do is scope the competition. I type in the desired keywords into Google and see who comes up. Then I check out every single competitor within the top 20 results.

And it takes some time but I take a quick look at their websites, then dig into the code, then look at their content organization, their backlinks, social media presence, and use a variety of other helpful SEO tools to give me details about their website. And it doesn't take long before I start to see trends and patterns and probable reasons as to why they rank so high. I am being very very brief with my explanation of this btw (there are many more factors than I'm listing here), the actual work itself is far more methodical and meticulous than what I am explaining here.

Then I go back to my client and explain how long and how much it would cost to OUTDO the efforts of the competitors. But nonetheless the method is systematic and full of helpful data and obvious indicators that you would benefit from if you knew how and where to look.



"Even though rankings have worked out for 5 years or so, that doesn't mean it's a smart way to build a business. There are people who hit it big in Vegas too."

- There are people who hit it big in Vegas? This is EXACTLY why I know you're not an SEO expert. You talk about SEO like it's a crapshoot. I bet you actually think I'm doing this all with luck (as if I didn't systematically engineer my ranking success again and again and again). Dude...I put in a relatively nominal effort and benefit for 5+ years free of charge. You can bet your ass off that if things were to suddenly downrank, I could easily do it again and potentially benefit for another 5+ years. Heck, it'll take even less effort because the hard work is done, only minor tweaks needed...assuming you did it right in the first place.

I think it ultimately comes down to effort, knowledge, and skill. It costs me a lot less time and money to do SEO than it does to do PPC. And so I'm doing the SEO because it's so damn easy and obvious for me...and really, I love the benefits. I don't know how you can call my method "not smart" when I'm getting more traffic than you with less effort. And if I had to re-do it again, SEO would probably remain the better option that takes less effort and gives better results.

I get far more traffic than you and I pay nothing. Just the fact that you can AFFORD TO PAY for your PPC makes me feel sorry for you. How much is a click nowadays? I'm going to pretend you only pay a mere $0.10 for each click (when we both know many people pay 5-10 times more than that). And let's say you're getting 10,000 clicks a month? So that's how much? $1000/month you pay for PPC?

And I'm getting over 150,000 clicks from Google every month. Can you imagine if each click cost me $0.10?! OUCH! Hahaha. I mean...sure, it wouldn't matter if the clicks converted to sales. But the thing is they already convert, and I'm already ranked for all the most desirable keywords I could have ever dreamed of, AND I'm not paying a single cent for the traffic.



"And if rankings were to change tomorrow, my paid traffic, the part I actually control, will always sustain my businesses."

- This makes logical sense. Spreading out your lead generators so everything doesn't go down in one basket. Although I don't supplement my SEO with PPC, I supplement my SEO with social media and word-of-mouth and other things. Then again, me and you could very well be in different industries and in different positions. So no harm there...we all have to cater to our businesses and business strategies.

With that said, I do have control over my SEO rankings. It's so easy for me. Google could change again if they wanted. I would simply re-analyze and alter my website around again. No big deal. In fact, I LOVE IT when Google algorithm changes...because they actually HELP my website, because I'm doing SEO correctly. I hope you understand there's a difference between the way I do SEO and the way you do SEO. And that your SEO results, while truthful and logical....do not represent the entire actuality of SEO field.




P.S.: I'm not trying to convert you to SEO or dis on PPC. I'm just saying you shouldn't downtalk SEO when you haven't fully reaped its benefits and haven't yet figured out how to do it EASILY and EFFECTIVELY/EFFICIENTLY/PREDICTABLY.

It was nice discussing SEO with you and I did not mean any offense towards or PPC. I wish you the best of luck, Gary. See you around on the forums.

It is much better to focus on SEO if you plan to run your website in years to come because it takes time for SEO to start getting results but once started they are steady and reliable.PPC u can use any time you want but only as contribution of your website promotion and addition to SEO.Dont rely only on PPC.

Regards,

Yes it's true ppc is easy but needs money. If you have money to spent then you can do ppc if you don't then no ppc
Yes SEO is hard and became harder. But SEO will always work, it's not like ppc, when you have money it works and when no money stops.

According to me, PPC is paid and cost valuable. PPC gives Instant valuable result. SEO takes long time to generate result and cost less. SEO give you reliable and long life result.

Facebook and other social ppc is not of much worth not even Google ppc. I mean i case of search engine purpose