SEO vs PPC: Which One Has Better ROI?

It is a must for every company to invest in a digital marketing strategy for increasing their brand value and web traffic in this highly competitive business world SEO vs PPC. However, the question is among these numerous digital marketing strategies available which one is better for investment? In this article, we will dive deep into the two most popular digital marketing strategies i.e. SEO and PPC.

Businesses usually spend on average 40% to 80% of their marketing budget on SEO and PPC because there are pretty effective for attracting traffic to your website. So, let’s see which one has a better ROI.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO is a digital marketing strategy that use to improve a website’s position and visibility in search engine results. SEO is a process of using varied tactics like keyword research, content creation, and page speed optimization to increase the ranking and visibility of your website in search results.

The higher ranking of the website in the Search result more will be the more internet traffic attracted by the website which in return, generates more sales to a certain business that the website will provide. If you want to know further about SEO and how it works you can visit our other blog.

Advantages of SEO

These are some of the advantages of SEO:

1.Long-lasting organic traffic

The main significant feature of SEO is that it generates organic web traffic which constitutes 53% of web traffic. Organic traffic is those people who are actively and genuinely searching for your products and services instead of being exposed by your ads.

The flow of organic traffic continued, even if you stop doing SEO. Once you maintain a stable and high ranking on the SERP, your website will get continuous traffic.

2.Brand Awareness

Optimization of your website for the search engine strengthens your brand awareness in a long run. Your SEO ranking will improve with your keyword-rich quality content and more people will find your website through Google and other search engines.

3.Credibility

SEO helps in building the credibility of your website. If your website ranks high in the SERP ranking, it increases your credibility and your website drives more traffic from your target audience. CTR of the top-ranking website on the SERP is 10x higher than search results on the second page.

It builds the authority of your website in your respective field and builds your trust with search engines to provide helpful and relevant information. This credibility factor increases your sales conversions and customer loyalty in a long run.

4.Budget-friendly

SEO is a budget-friendly digital marketing strategy. In the USA, the average cost of SEO service is $2,500 to $5000/month. It seems quite expensive to you but that is not the case. This payment is for long-term free conversion, which you will achieve.

Disadvantages of SEO

These are some of the disadvantages of SEO:

1.High competition

It is highly competitive because of keyword dependency. You have to compete with the other website to get on the top of the SERP ranking. This is highly challenging because every website target for high-traffic keywords.

2.Frequent adjustment required

 Your SEO constantly changes with the changes in the Google algorithm. Numerous factors are used by the Google algorithm to rank a website. So you have to keep your website in balance with the new algorithm update, if you don’t want to lose the SEO success you gain so far.

3.Unique content

Relevancy and quality of the content on your website are the key factors of ranking a search engine uses. The SEO field is continuously changing and making your original content more engaging and updating from time to time is necessary to rank first in the competition.

4.Time-consuming

Your SEO efforts can take more than 6-9 months to bloom. You needed to make an effective SEO strategy and has to invest your time and patience to taste success in the long run.

What is PPC?

PPC stands for per-per-click. It is an advertising model where for each ad click that takes users to your site, you have to pay the search engine.

PPC provides you a grip on the traffic of search engines by bidding on specific keywords and phrases. The cost of the clicks depends upon your budget and keyword competitiveness.

Advantages of PPC

These are some of the advantages of PPC:

1.Targeting audience

You can target the audience with PPC based on their topic, demography, location, interest, etc. the targeting level ensures that your ads only appear in front of the right people and increases your chances of converting them into customers.

2.Fast results

With PPC you can easily generate leads quickly and showcase your website in front of the online diaspora. PPC and Google ads give you faster results in just one day. Hence, PPC is ideal for those businesses that need faster results.

3.Quick A/B Testing

A/B Testing is an experimenting process that allows you to test multiple versions of your website or advertisement and check which one is performing better. PPC allows you to check the different versions of ads and check their clicks and conversions rate and you can also continuously optimize your ads for more clicks.

4.Shown above organic results

 PPC results always appear at the top of the SERP ranking. You don’t need to worry about your PPC ads getting lost among the organic search results. PPCs are the center of attraction for potential customers.

5.Control over budget

PPC campaign is all about setting a budget that will help you to stay on track and not overspend and it makes sure your ads are set up perfectly for maximum results.

6.Intelligent marketing

With PPC, you can do conversion tracking and analytics integration which provide data on keyword conversion, percentage, and cost. This data is useful in understanding the importance of organic search value.

Disadvantages of PPC

These are some of the disadvantages of PPC:

1.Quite expensive depending on the keywords

PPC advertising is expensive when you especially target high-traffic keywords. The average cost of PPC is $5k-$9k/month. So, if you want to see a positive ROI create a well-planned strategy otherwise your whole advertising budget will go down the drain without reaping your desired results.

2.Difficult to maintain

PPC campaigns take time and effort to maintain. You need to regularly track your ads and check whether they are performing well or need any alteration. The maintenance of the PPC campaign becomes more challenging when you are running multiple campaigns simultaneously.

3.No guarantee sales

PPC ads do generate a lot of clicks but all those clicks do not guarantee you sales. The conversion rate of PPC ad clicks is 2-5% on average. To optimize the conversions into customers, you need to add call-to-action buttons and a smart landing page design to your website to attract their attention.

Benefits of combining SEO and PPC strategy

The balance combination of these approaches in your digital marketing plan can optimize your business’s online presence.

1. Both SEO and PPC increase your search visibility. Hence, it bolsters your brand identity.
2. They both boost your website traffic. PPC generates leads after ad publishing for the short term and SEO generates long-term organic traffic.
3. You can use PPC to bid on the keywords, you targeted and provide those keywords good visibility.

SEO ROI vs PPC ROI

It is observed that the CTR (Click-through-rate) of SEO is higher than PPC. That suggests that SEO has more potential to drive organic traffic for the website and it has a much lower CPA (cost-per-acquisition) than PPC. SEO prevents you from spending a hefty amount of money per month on paid searches.

Realistically speaking, if you spend a million dollars per month on paid searches, you could reduce your CPA from 60-80% by overpowering the organic searches while reducing your PPC spend.

If you are weak in SEO now, you can still move gradually toward SEO. When you start performing well with organic searches, shift your focus more to SEO rather than on paid searches. This will take time but you eventually get to taste the fruit of success. For achieving higher ROI from your SEO strategy, make yourself engaged with the enterprise SEO.

SEO or PPC, Which one is better?

For businesses or brands who want to increase their website traffic in the long term and increase their brand awareness, SEO is the best digital marketing strategy for them. SEO needs patience and a systematic flow of strategy to get the desired results. SEO is not for those who have a giving-up attitude and can easily move on to some other marketing strategy.

If your marketing goal is to get instant sales and leads, PPC is highly recommended for you. However, ads are only a temporary thing, you still need a website that is user friendly that provides an easy medium for your visitors to find your services and products for better results, your website should redirect your interested customers to the landing page of their product purchase, not on the homepage of your website.

You have to regularly monitor the performance of your ad campaign and make the required adjustment for it. That’s how you make your ad campaign successful.

Conclusion

PPC returns are immediate but they stop with the completion of your PPC ad campaign while SEO is a time-consuming process but its ROI is for the long term. SEO and PPC are quite different in terms of their approach but their main objective is to provide visibility to a website. It is observed that PPC is useful for the new website and SEO works better with well-established websites. PPC is mainly result focused while SEO is goal oriented. However, they are mutually exclusive. It is all up to you which type of strategy you want to opt for your business.

For more info about SEO Click on the given link

FAQs