SEO Vs PPC

Discover key differences and which strategy best suits your business.

 

Both SEO and paid advertising are well-established and popular methods for generating leads, each offering prominent visibility on Google. While they share some similarities, they also have distinct differences, with each offering unique advantages as well as factors that should be carefully considered.

Many business owners still don’t fully grasp the differences between these two powerful marketing tools, so in this article, we’ll explain the difference:

Pay-Per-Click (PPC), Google AdWords, paid advertising example

Paying for ads on Google (and social media) is a popular choice to attract visibility to a website, to be found and to sell more.

Utilising these campaigns is called SEM (Search Engine Marketing, as opposed to SEO, Search Engine Optimisation).

It can be a potent approach, but it should be considered for all its advantages and consequences.

Pros and cons of SEM

With paid ads, your site can be immediately found, ranking top on Google, but only as long as you keep paying for your ad.

This makes the method very fast in delivering results, but also very costly.

You can recognise when a result is sponsored by the element “Ad” before the URL. Users know that these results are ranking because someone is paying for that to happen and tend not to trust these results not as much as organic rankings.

In fact, CTR (click-through-rate) of a sponsored result is lower than an organic ranking.

Gaining organic results with SEO, instead, is a longer-term type of approach.

Search Engine Optimisation example

An example of our website ranking on Google’s top position on the first page of the results for one of the niches to which we offer our services. We applied our SEO knowledge and expertise to our own site; being found so well organically on Google is what SEO is for and it can make a massive difference in terms of leads and potential customers that your business can get. It can make a massive difference

 


Pros and cons of SEO

Most people nowadays are aware that with Search Engine Optimisation, results cannot be achieved overnight. According to the specific website’s characteristics and backlink profile, it could take a few months to achieve desirable first-page rankings.

However, once your pages acquire these positions, they can fluctuate a bit – or a lot, if a competitor starts targeting that same keyword heavily, by producing better content than yours (therefore, always keep your rankings monitored to be able to promptly react if anything happens) – but generally, they can remain yours for quite a while.

Regularly producing informative and original content & maintaining/monitoring the health of the website is the route to ranking success.

However, the investment in SEO will pay off in the long run by giving your site a natural (organic) ranking that you won’t continuously have to invest in.

SEO vs PPC: what shall I choose then?

The most powerful and balanced approach, therefore, combines SEO and SEM.

It implies relying on paid ads as a fast resource to rank for what lies beyond your site’s current reach, whilst optimising your site so that it also organically delivers ranking goals that your site needs to possess organically.


Let’s make some examples:
  • Medical Sector: A private clinic looking to attract more patients might use PPC to quickly appear at the top for “emergency dental services” while investing in SEO to rank for “best dental clinic in London” over the long term.
  • Legal Sector: A law firm could use PPC to target urgent needs like “24/7 legal advice” while SEO efforts focus on ranking for “experienced commercial lawyers in Manchester”.
  • Financial Sector: A financial advisory firm might use PPC to capture immediate queries like “urgent tax advice” and use SEO to rank for “top financial advisors in the UK”.
  • B2B Businesses: A software company can leverage PPC to quickly generate leads for “best CRM software for small businesses” while working on SEO to appear in organic searches for “affordable CRM solutions for startups”.
  • B2C Businesses: An e-commerce store could use PPC to promote seasonal offers such as “summer sale on electronics” while utilising SEO to rank for “best deals on electronics”.
Why Choose Us?

At PinkSEO, we specialise in providing top-notch SEO services tailored to the needs of established businesses. 

We have a proven track record of success stories and glowing reviews from clients across various industries. Our focus is solely on SEO, ensuring that we bring the highest level of expertise and dedication to your project.

Interested in boosting your online presence and driving more qualified leads to your business?

Contact us for a free consultation and discover how our specialised SEO services can help your business achieve its goals. Reach out to us today and let’s start building a successful SEO strategy together.