Advantages of PPC over SEO

[coykiesaol]

Here are some advantages of PPC over SEO:

- Set up Time and Cost
- Long Term value
- Risk
- Measurability
- Flexible
- Easy implementation

[fcolor]

It is wrong to compare those techniques, because PPC is a for of advertising while SEO is a form of optimizing a website for better ranking in search engines. There is a lot of development work as well as copywriting on the SEO side. It is like to compare football with the basketball. At the end of the day someone wins the game and there is a crowd, but they are different.

[aartwerk]

To extend on what fcolor said, PPC is a form of SEM (Search Engine Marketing) that is an off-site advertising element in marketing a website. SEO is an on-site element that is also required in marketing a website. In my opinion, SEO must be implemented in order to run a more effective PPC campaign. The better your SEO, the higher your conversions with PPC will be. SEO and PPC work together.

It can be argued that the only measurable advantages of PPC over SEO lies in the control of 3 areas: Relevance, ROI & Reach. I say this because the tools offered by e.g. Google Adwords for PPC offer controls that allow for precise targeting of a market as well as quick turnaround in making adjustments to a PPC campaign. This can result in high ROI when planned and managed properly. A good SEO will however be able to measure and manage the same factors and make adjustments to a website as well, but the results might take a bit longer to show in organic listings.

In terms of your comments, I briefly assess PPC v. SEO as follows:
- Setup time and costs are variables in both fields. Both need similar research and time and costs are too dependent on the specific campaign/budget to compare.
- Both fields can offer the same long term value, as long as the targeted keywords are still relevant. The PPC value ends when the ad campaign ends and a target has been met which is based on the PPC campaign. The SEO continues to work for the website organically, as long as the website is live.
- The risk is the same for both fields and is tied into the cost for each. If the initial research for both SEO and PPC is poor, then it will cost money. However, a poorly managed PPC campaign can bankrupt you overnight, yet poor SEO can not.
- PPC does offer quick measurability on performance monitoring and conversion tracking, but a good SEO will be able to report on the same with a little extra work. Understanding analytics is the key to both.
- PPC is flexible yes, but so is SEO in making on-site adjustmentments and adding/changing content to a site.
- Implementation in both fields varies but there are many similarities in e.g. the research and campaign planning beforehand. Once the groundwork for either field is done, it really depends on the size of a campaign.

The biggest difference between PPC and SEO lies in the impressions and clickthrough rates (CTR). With PPC you have a limited number of impressions that you can achieve within a set budget. Generally speaking, you have a higher CTR on PPC impressions, since you are targetting a very specific type of search query and you are almost guaranteed a certain position on the search results page for your targeted keyword(s). Organic listings achieved through SEO (and other SEM practises) have variable CTR, depending on the position of your listing within the first few results pages. However, with SEO, it is possible to achieve consistently high search engine results that could produce much more impressions without being limited to the budget constraints of a PPC campaign. So, in defence of good SEO, for the same amount of budget, you can potentially get much more impressions, for the same targeted keywords, which even at a lower CTR will translate into more qualified visitors to your website over a much longer period than PPC can do. In defence of good PPC, I will say that it can offer results in a short period of time with a limited budget, resources, experience etc. PPC is advertising and, after all, advertising comes with its own set of rules and goals.

At the end of the day, its about getting targetted traffic to a website and converting the acquired traffic into a positive, goal based result as efficiently as possible. Both PPC and SEO can do this when done correctly and coherently.

[jasmunder]

you comparing bananas with Mangos

PPC and SEO two different things

[PeterRossy]

I think that the best advantage is that you will waste much less time for your campaign in such a way

[Larry Moskovitz]

Yeah its right PPC and Seo are two different thing PPC advertisement is a form of advertising where advertisers pay for visitors on cost per click basis PPC is well known for getting quick results, albeit in the long run possibly more expensive than search engine optimization PPC is only profitable for business since you can start selling your products.SEO can give to your mark a high international profile - and for comparatively low expenditure SEO is among the most profitable manners of marketing...

[Definis]

Good analyze between PPC and SEO, both are vise versal. If we want in sort period leads and traffic then we follow PPC but it will be lmited period. In case of SEO, it take time but we get good amount of traffic for long traffic...

[theindiafun]

I ppc we will have to pay to advertise company for every click but is SEO we get all the visitors for free of cost.

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[JasonP]

There's always a cost. Time spent on SEO certainly isn't free :)

[shaniadavid]

SEO gives you results but its a long procedure.. On the other hand PPC can gives u instant results but obviously you will have to pay more!

[dahoacuong]

I like SEO because it's very good

[sexer_007]

agreed.

[Dr.Zibic]

I agreed with the opinion that PPC is more fast way to get the relevant traffic on your website. But not agreed that SEO and PPC are different things. Banana and Mango are both fruits.
Let me explain, when you have efficient SEO on your website you can register in PPC company and sell your traffic for a good BID's. You can even buy traffic from one PPC and sell it to another. So I think those things different if you look at them like on different methods of getting profit, but they are from one family like mango and banana.
Hope my idea is clear :)

[Allen_adv]

I have a question :

If you are doing SEO and PPC for your website, is it ok to stop the PPC when Seo method brought you to the top of the search list for some keywords ?

[digipham]

Each method has different disadvantages. We cannot say PPC is better than SEO, and vice versa. But SEO is still the good one to choose for long term in comparision with PPC. For PPC, you have to pay in order to appear on the first page of google.

[mauconline]

SEO and PPC compliment each other and are best used together to get maximum ROI. So its not so much about which is better but rather how best and to use each of them.

[espsol]

This is not best way to compare the PPC with SEO. SEO is a long term value instead of PPC. To get the better results from SEO we need to run a PPC campaign.

[joy12]

SEO takes some time to effect the result. And PPC is short term process.

[jimmi5052]

ppc is paid advertisement but seo is a free...

[keyideas]

PPC have following advantage over organic SEO. PPC follow the RTCF rule.
R: Reach - Through PPC you can target your geographical region and can be reachable to that area.
T: Time - You can also set the geographical time zome while optimizing the Adwords campaign account.
C: Cost - You can expense according to your budget while using the PPC campaign
F: Flexibility - PPC campaign is very flexible you can activate or pause your ads according to your target audience