Search engines, like Google and Bing, make it easy for potential customers to find your business. These search engines help to organize the web by analyzing websites and delivering the best results to online searchers based on their search queries. The higher your website ranks, the better chance customers have to find you on the search engine results page (SERP).

Search engines provide two kinds of listings—organic listings and paid listings. Search engine optimization (SEO) focuses on optimizing organic listings, whereas pay per click (PPC) advertising focuses on optimizing paid listings. Both organic and paid listings can boost your online visibility. Like chemical compounds, when combined properly, they can produce more powerful results!

Composition

SEO & PPC Infographic

What Is It?

SEO: SEO is the process of helping the search engines organize the Internet, providing searchers with the information, services, and products they are looking for. It is also the process of satisfying the individual needs of the searcher by quickly delivering content that not only matches their search query, but also delivers the best experience.

PPC: PPC advertising allows you to create ads that will be displayed on the SERP. Advertisers set a bid for what they are willing to “pay per click” and are charged each time a user clicks on their ad. PPC ads appear directly above and to the right of organic listings on the SERP, and search engines label them as ads.

Benefits

SEO

PPC

  • Immediate Placement: Once a campaign is live, ads have the chance to show up on the SERP immediately.
  • Budget Management: You are in control of what you’re willing to spend per day. Search engines will spend no more than 20% over your daily budget.
  • Managed Placement: PPC offers great features like ad scheduling and location targeting. These features give advertisers the ability to choose when and where they want their ads to show.

Drawbacks

SEO

  • SEO typically takes 4 to 6 months before you see results, with best results after 9 to 12 months.
  • SEO is an ongoing process that requires consistent effort, continual monitoring, and constant refining—resulting in a lot of work hours.
  • Search engines are constantly updating their algorithms, which can affect your rankings.
  • There’s no guarantee of ranking on the first page.

PPC

  • PPC ads only work as long as your campaign is active. If paused or stopped, traffic from this source stops as well.
  • SERPs label your PPC advertisements as ads. Users tend to avoid advertisements when completing a search.
  • Having active ads doesn’t guarantee ad position or clicks. Constant evaluation and optimization is necessary for a successful PPC campaign.

Combined Effects

Immediate and Long-Term Results: By itself, PPC advertising offers immediate but temporary results. SEO by itself offers long-lasting but delayed results. Together, these tactics complement each other to provide both immediate and long-lasting results.

Higher Share of Clicks: Both organic and paid listings give users more chances to click on your website. A study by Bing shows that the top organic listing receives 60% of the clicks, but the top organic listing combined with the top paid listing for the same brand receives 91% of the clicks.

Use SEO and PPC together to attract more customers, expand your brand authority, and greatly increase your profits.

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4 Comments

  • Andrew Williams, March 10, 2016 @ 3:47 pm

    I think it is great to be on top of PPC and on top of organic results so you get both kinds of visitors. Some like to click on the very first thing they see which is PPC and some like to skip the ads and click on the first organic results.

  • Thaddaeus Brodrick, March 11, 2016 @ 8:41 am

    This was a great post. I really enjoyed seeing the side by side comparison.

  • chandru sharma, March 22, 2016 @ 6:06 am

    Yeah… Its very nice to see and well explained about SEO and PPC…that you shared information is very informative. Thank you for sharing this…

    Chandru Sharma From Bizbilla World’s Leading b2b portal

  • Robert Brown Farley, March 25, 2016 @ 10:23 am

    Am I the average searcher? Probably not, but I skip the ads –
    My daughter does the same and the majority of those I know as friends do as well.
    Yes it’s a great article with comparison data to support the study. And I agree based on other similar studies. We also market to clientele these studies.
    Our primary focus is creating Unique Relevant Quality Content SEO’d for organic traffic. But it takes time and patience – and our clientele’s competition may or may not be targeting the same keywords and or key phrases… “Organically” and using a “PPC” strategy to get there.
    There have been times when my partnering company and I were both targeting the same exact key traffic organically and in PPC – Once I saw what was going on I withdrew my “PPC” ads.

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