The SEO versus Pay-Per-Click debate
Which is best for my website promotion?
This is a very popular question asked by dentists who are trying to determine which web marketing channel will deliver “best bang for buck” – SEO or pay-per-click?
Before we explore further, here are a couple of very quick overview definitions:
- SEO – the process whereby the search ranking of a website is progressively improved using techniques such as ethical back-link acquisition, content generation, blogging and social media. There is no direct fee other than to your optimisation partner.
- Pay-per-click – paid advertising e.g. Google AdWords, where your advert position is governed by how much you are prepared to bid for each click.
So let’s take a closer look at the pros and cons of each method…..
Pay-per-click (here we consider the most popular choice – Google AdWords)
Pros:
- Fast start-up – displaying your ads on Google is near instantaneous, effectively as soon as you make payment and your account is set to live.
- You control your ad placement – irrespective of which sector you are advertising in, you control your ad placement. Bid more and your ad appears higher. Bid high enough and your ads will appear above the organic (free) search results and those of your competitors.
- Configurable – the user control panel has many different facets which makes it easy to configure ads and optimise them, at least for experienced users. You can schedule when your ads appear, use extensions to make them more appealing, target them by location and more. However, diligent PPC management is time consuming and requires repeated intervention to get best results.
- Data tracking – the system is fully integrated with Google Analytics so it’s easy to see how your campaigns are performing.
Cons:
- Huge cost over time – AdWords is not cheap, particularly in sectors where competition is strong, for example dentistry.
- Sole dependency – when considering PPC vs SEO I often think about an interest-only mortgage versus repayment – interest-only doesn’t accrue anything in the background and neither does PPC. If you switch off your PPC, you fall back on a website that has not been optimised, languishes in the organic rankings and almost certainly doesn’t deliver results.
- Management fees – PPC can waste *huge* amounts of cash if no done correctly. It is not a fire and forget process – every campaign should be re-visited and optimised regularly to improve quality scores and reduce click costs. DIY AdWords management is not simple and can be a money-pit.
Search engine optimisation – SEO
Pros:
- Clicks are free – each click you get on an organic search result is essentially free.
- Medium/long term ROI – over time, a successful SEO campaign will deliver increasing numbers of clicks to your website as you progress up the search rankings. This is more sustainable than PPC which does not improve your natural search position. Longer term, SEO is the more cost-effective option.
- Click ratio – data suggests that the click ratio of organic search versus paid search is 75:25. Our data from numerous accounts also suggests that organic conversions are generally much better than paid conversions.
- Trust – different views exist but data and user surveys suggest that people trust organic search results more than paid search.
Cons:
- Slow start up – gaining momentum with SEO is not as easy as it used to be. In fact Google has made it way more difficult by shutting down the “fast and cheap” channels which many SEO agencies used to rely on. In fact, as we’ve seen in other recent blog posts, those techniques now just serve to get a website penalised. So it is now takes a lot of experience and diligent, hard work to move a website forward in Google. If you achieve page one rankings in anything less than 6 months, then you’ve done well. In competitive environments, expect longer.
So we can see that PPC and SEO have their own sets of pros and cons. In fact the question we originally posed about which one is best is some way off the mark in that SEO and PPC both have a place and complement each other quite well.
Where we need to get a campaign off the ground quickly, for example a new website launch, then PPC is a good option. In parallel it also makes sense to begin the SEO process to improve those organic results.
Similarly, where we need to rank new keywords quickly, maybe for a new service or an offer, then PPC has a role to play.
PPC also helps to inform our organic SEO campaigns in that it gives us a lot of data quite quickly. For example, it helps us to see which keywords convert well so we can target our efforts accordingly.
Balanced efforts
Our general advice is to adopt a balanced approach. For new sites PPC can deliver results quickly but at a cost. Over time, investing in SEO to improve organic rankings is a sensible and sustainable approach. As organic ranking and traffic improves, the reliance on PPC can be reduced. Ultimately it’s all about ROI – even where a site has prominent organic rankings and good traffic, incremental traffic delivered via PPC is still worthwhile as long as it delivers on the investment. All of this is measurable.
If you would like advice on the two key elements of search marketing, SEO and PPC, please call us on 01332 672548 for a no-obligation discussion and we’ll be pleased to assist.