When you start a business, you would surely want to grow the business and its awareness. This is done through marketing activities. Digital marketing is considered to have a higher and more focused reach as compared to traditional marketing and is hence more popular.
Two of the most popular modes of digital marketing are SEO and PPC services in India. To choose one, you must evaluate the benefits and detriments of each in the context of your business needs. To do so, let’s look at the various aspects of digital marketing and assess them both.
A Basic Comparison
While SEO is free, it requires time for the campaign to take effect. On the other hand, PPC is a paid activity and can show results fairly quickly.
What Is SEO?
SEO is a method of getting business leads organically through the optimization of your website. Such a website aims to be picked up by the search engine in response to specific queries posed by its users.
What Is PPC?
Pay per click advertising involves promoting the link of your website through an advertisement. In this format, the advertiser pays the host each time a user clicks on the link and visits the page of the advertiser.
Comparison of Costs between PPC and SEO
- The Costs Involved in PPC
Though you have to pay for each visitor through PPC, a point to be noted here is that each of those is a good potential lead because they were specifically interested in the product.
Each click, though paid for, can bring in a good amount of business through a small investment. This is particularly effective for eCommerce businesses.
The PPC campaign can be executed in short bursts with immediate results and does not pose a cost to the business through the year
- The Real Cost of SEO
Though it is free in monetary terms, it costs a business in terms of time. Apart from the time cost, SEO involves the creation of a variety of content, which is not free. The content must also be updated regularly since SEO is a continuous process. It is not a race to get ahead of others but a struggle to stay at the top throughout. One mistake and you could lose your ranking. Keeping up with SEO is not easy, especially when you have to manage other aspects of your business as well. It is wise to take help from professionals in the field.
Comparison of Results
- Results of SEO
SEO can be compared to rearing a tree from the first stage of planting a seed where the process is slow and steady and requires a lot of effort.
The results of this effort and time investment are plenty and recurring. Once the business and its reputation are established through SEO, it is here to stay.
The ROI is better with SEO, and if you are doing it all yourself and not investing in SEO services, the returns are even better. This is also seen to be more effective when the competition is not tough.
Results of PPC
The PPC campaigns show immediate results, are easy to comprehend, and do not require you to be constantly updated with the algorithms of the search engine. The ROI for PPC is lower, but considering that the cost is not incurred through the year, the ROI is also applicable for the period of the campaign and hence cannot grow throughout.
How to Choose Between PPC and SEO?
The choice depends on your profit margins and the time you have on hand. If you can make a good profit through a successful click, it makes a lot of sense to invest in an ad, but if the profit margins are likely to be used up for the click, it is better to avoid PPC.
It is more suited for eCommerce platforms. It is also very good to get an initial burst of awareness when starting. An ideal scenario for a new business would be one of the consistent SEO efforts backed up with occasional boosts of PPC.