Welcome to the final installation of my opinion on the ongoing debate of SEO vs. PPC.

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this 3 part series, I took a look at some of the individual benefits of SEO and PPC and how they compare to one another in terms of effectiveness. Today I’ll be taking a look at the outcome of this debate and drawing some conclusions from the benefits of each marketing method that we’ve identified in previous blog posts. Check it out…

So, who’s the winner?

Truth is there is no “winner” as such. SEO and PPC both have their individual benefits and are in essence two very different search marketing tools that can’t actually be compared to one another because they are just too dissimilar. The “winning” situation and strategy that all companies should really think about implementing is a balanced combination of the two strategies in order to take advantage of both of their individual strengths.

A Couple weeks ago I discussed the benefits of an effective SEO campaign and the long term benefits it has on a website’s traffic as well as the overall monetary value of a website. This week, we take a look at the advantages that an effective PPC campaign can bring to an online business or any type of website.

The Benefits of PPC – Pay Per Click – Paid Search Marketing:

PPC, an acronym for Pay Per Click, literally refers to advertising on search engines via display advertising that you only pay for once somebody actually clicks on one of your displayed ads. The cost of the click is determined by a bidding system whereby relevance to a search term combined with the amount bid on an advertisement determine when and where your ad will be displayed. I could go into much more detail regarding the calculation of the actual cost per click, but that’s for another blog post on another day.

I constantly stumble across people debating the benefits of SEO versus the benefits of an effective PPC campaign. Many PPC agencies will slag off SEO agencies and vice-versa, but the truth is that each of these strategies are good in the their own right and should almost not even be compared to one another because they are effectively different things; the difference being that organic SEO traffic is technically free and PPC traffic is well, pay per click.

I have decided to do a 3 part blog focusing on the Benefits of SEO, the Benefits of PPC and the Benefit of using both in cahoots with one another in order to form a well balanced, all-round online marketing strategy.

Today’s post takes a look at the benefits of SEO when compared to PPC. Next week we will take a look at PPC and conclude the week after that. I hope you’ll find it as interesting to read as I have found it interesting to write.

SEO is no longer just about getting to that number 1 spot in Google. Yes, ranking at number 1 is a great start, but these days thanks to the numerous changes to algos, social representation and the actual layout of Google’s first page, there is so much more to think about when analyzing your CTR from page 1.

In the past if you ranked at number 1, it was said that you would receive a CTR of 30% or more purely by outranking your competitors. Now however, we have so many other factors that come into play such as Google’s social search results, videos, shopping results and map listings that simply ranking at number 1 no longer guarantees the CTR that you might have been used to in the past.

I was recently presenting a case for SEO to a prospective client. I received some important feedback later from one of the other parties in the meeting. I knew it was a good meeting, however it only really found its legs when I started discussing the ROI.

The Question that we always need to ask ourselves is “How many new sales must the client make to cover the cost of this SEO work”. This is of course especially applicable for clients that are selling goods or services and where the primary goal is not brand promotion or reputation management.

With the myriad social media platforms now available for companies to utilize, have the era of corporate blogs finally come to an end? Twitter is an outstanding and instant method of promoting newsworthy items; Facebook has the social status to engage with a community in an instant and even the trustworthy YouTube is able to accurately display adverts in a flash. Do we still require corporate blogs or can we live with the micro-blogging platform which is easily provided by the other social media outlets? Yes, we still require corporate blogs and by following a few simple rules your blog can excel far beyond the capabilities of your competitors:

Ever since Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of twitter first tweeted, ‘just setting up my twttr’ on March the 21^st 2006, the world instantly fell in love with this unbelievably popular social media platform. Five years later and Twitter is almost the most powerful marketing tool in the world, with clients, governments, celebrities and multinational organizations alike tweeting nonstop; keeping us updated is the defining factor in today’s civilized society and no-one does it better than Twitter. How did they become so powerful in only five years?

Instant updates, without a messy interface and the opportunity to appear on almost any social media platform, Twitter is a quick and powerful way of spreading your company’s message. Five years ago, did anyone believe that Twitter would have been valued at almost ten billion dollars? Twitter is the first to announce global events – such as when the recent disaster in Japan occurred, Twitter was one of the first social media platforms to spread the news to the rest of the world. In Egypt, in Libya and in countries which want to be heard, Twitter has become the people’s platform.

“So this SEO expert walks into a bar, grill, pub, public house, Irish pub, bartender, drinks, beer, wine, liquor…”

Doubtless you’ve seen this joke and others like it doing the rounds in the past months. Sure it’s cute, but the fact that strategic White Hat SEO is still being confused with keyword stuffing and spammy copy is no laughing matter. Tell a group of new acquaintances that you work for an SEO agency and it’s not uncommon for them to react as if you just announced that you rob banks for a living. This is due to a fundamental misunderstanding of what SEO involves; ethical or “White Hat” SEO techniques are all too often lumped together with dishonest or “Black Hat” tactics employed by agencies that give the rest of the industry a bad name.

There are a few fundamental differences between legitimate SEO strategies and deceitful tactics: