SEO Tip of the Day: Understanding Google PPC vs SEO
Have you seen the Sponsored Links section at the top and sides of a search result? That is Google Adwords (http://adwords.google.com/) (called Google Pay Per Click or PPC). PPC is a form of advertising where your business can be listed in the Sponsored Links section of the search results and you pay for each click someone makes. Google PPC is fast and fairly easy to set up, has a great knowledge base, and practically runs itself.
Organic SEO is a process of optimizing (or having someone optimize) your site for particular keywords so that your website shows up in the top of the natural search results, not in Sponsored Links. This is called organic or natural SEO because your website naturally drifts to the top as it becomes more «relevant” for the keywords for which people are searching.
There are many advantages and disadvantages of both PPC and SEO. Here are the pros and cons of both and you can decide what works best for you.
Google PPC Pros & Cons:
*There is no impact on your website content. When optimizing a site, there are several things you need to change on a website and sometimes website owners don’t like these changes. With PPC, there are no changes made to your website.
*Traffic starts flowing instantly to your site for the keywords you choose in PPC. However, don’t forget that there is no limit to the amount you can spend. As long as you have ads and people are clicking on them, you will be paying per click.
*Instant analyzing capabilities in Google PPC: You have access to real-time analytics with Google.
*You can buy a first position, although if this is a competitive keyword, it will be very expensive.
*You can control the amount you want to spend per day and how long to run the campaign. You only pay when a customer clicks on your ad, and you don’t have to pay for optimization of your site.
*You can decide which and how many keywords you would like to use.
*You can limit your keyword searches to geographical areas. For example, you can target an area around your city or various cities. I have found it works better, when advertising locally, if you actually put the local keyword into PPC, for example «air conditioning Manhattan Kansas” rather than having the keyword be «air conditioning” and relying on Google to make the geographical determination.
*Users are sometimes suspicious of «paid for” listings. It was reported in a study (http://www.entrepreneurship.fiu.edu/downloads/marc_resnick/Research/An empirical study of paid listings in product search and purchase.pdf) that «for paid listings to yield the financial results that are anticipated by the business community, it is critical that consumers perceive paid listings and their descriptions as relevant to their transactional tasks…Participants in the study showed a bias against paid listings in several ways. They reported an explicit suspicion about paid listings in their verbal protocols. They rated the relevance of the paid listings as lower than the organic listings despite the content of the descriptions being controlled across listing type”.
*Click fraud is a real possibility from competition. If your competition knows about you and wants to make you pay, they can click on your ad as many times as they would like.
*PPC is good for promotional or short-term traffic. You don’t have to optimize an entire page and wait for it to be indexed if you want to promote a sale or some other short-term ad. You can set up your ads with keywords in PPC, use them for a short time, and then turn them off.
There are many advantages and disadvantages of both PPC and SEO. Here are the pros and cons of both and you can decide what works best for you.
Google PPC Pros & Cons:
*There is no impact on your website content. When optimizing a site, there are several things you need to change on a website and sometimes website owners don’t like these changes. With PPC, there are no changes made to your website.
*Traffic starts flowing instantly to your site for the keywords you choose in PPC. However, don’t forget that there is no limit to the amount you can spend. As long as you have ads and people are clicking on them, you will be paying per click.
*Instant analyzing capabilities in Google PPC: You have access to real-time analytics with Google.
*You can buy a first position, although if this is a competitive keyword, it will be very expensive.
*You can control the amount you want to spend per day and how long to run the campaign. You only pay when a customer clicks on your ad, and you don’t have to pay for optimization of your site.
*You can decide which and how many keywords you would like to use.
*You can limit your keyword searches to geographical areas. For example, you can target an area around your city or various cities. I have found it works better, when advertising locally, if you actually put the local keyword into PPC, for example «air conditioning Manhattan Kansas” rather than having the keyword be «air conditioning” and relying on Google to make the geographical determination.
*Users are sometimes suspicious of «paid for” listings. It was reported in a study (http://www.entrepreneurship.fiu.edu/downloads/marc_resnick/Research/An empirical study of paid listings in product search and purchase.pdf) that «for paid listings to yield the financial results that are anticipated by the business community, it is critical that consumers perceive paid listings and their descriptions as relevant to their transactional tasks…Participants in the study showed a bias against paid listings in several ways. They reported an explicit suspicion about paid listings in their verbal protocols. They rated the relevance of the paid listings as lower than the organic listings despite the content of the descriptions being controlled across listing type”.
*Click fraud is a real possibility from competition. If your competition knows about you and wants to make you pay, they can click on your ad as many times as they would like.
*PPC is good for promotional or short-term traffic. You don’t have to optimize an entire page and wait for it to be indexed if you want to promote a sale or some other short-term ad. You can set up your ads with keywords in PPC, use them for a short time, and then turn them off.