PPC or Organic SEO Which is better?

Pay Per Click (PPC) is an advertising program where the website owner pays a certain amount of money to the advertiser for every click produced on his website link. This program is gaining popularity, owing to its direct impact on the productivity. A study conducted by Jupiter Research suggests that the total amount spent on PPC by 2010 will cross $7 billion.

PPC, however, is becoming a costly affair for the websites; the rates are increasing day by day, and the competition is getting tougher and tougher. The PPC, though promises to be a good marketing strategy, if not carried out in a proper manner, will result in huge financial loss.

Organic SEO, the natural method of improving the search engine optimization (SEO), always has got its relevance in the present SEO scenario. While natural SEO depends mostly on the link popularity of the websites, PPC method relies on the advertising strategies wholly.

Let’s compare these two methods of website marketing.

Natural SEO – Pros

• If done effectively natural SEO will surely bring better results. The reason for this is that the viewer is attracted to the natural links than the links displayed under the ‘ads’ category.

• Link popularity brings double advantage to the website. Buying links from popular websites and directing them to your websites can improve the page ranking of your website. Secondly, the popular links will themselves act as a promoter for your website without the need of further investment.

Natural SEO- Cons

• The inbound links to a website can result in poor performance of a website due to various reasons. If websites that are linked by external links do not have relevant contents, they will be treated as ‘link farm’ and will be penalized by the search engines. Also, if the websites that offer the outbound links are not so popular and fails to bring proper SEO for it, all the linked websites will suffer.

• It takes comparatively longer period to get the SEO by natural SEO method. It will take a minimum of three months to start reaping the fruits of the natural SEO.

PPC- Pros

• PPC advertising offers a smooth traffic and so quicker result. Thus it would be the best option for those who are ready to invest huge money but want immediate results.

• PPC ads have more targeted nature and so are more productive compared to the hits made by the natural SEO methods.

PPC- Cons

• The cost involved in PPC is always on the higher side. Depending on the popularity of the keyword of your business or service, the PPC cost may vary. It can range from a mere $100 to a shocking $100,000 per year.

• Fraud clicks can cost a great deal of your advertising money. Though fraud clicks can be monitored and controlled to an extent by the search engine algorithms, they cannot be completely controlled. The cost to the company will be huge if there are planned attempts by the competitors for risking the business of another company.
PPC will be the ideal method for those who are ready to invest huge money and want immediate result. However, natural SEO is advisable for a cost-effective long-term result. Both methods, however, require expertise.