eMarketing Results – SEO Firm

In this post I am going to focus on an area of much confusion by small to medium size business owners. The question I often hear is:

“Should I optimize my website for “free” search engine traffic, or launch a pay-per-click campaign on Google Adwords?”

My answer is always the same – if you can profitably drive traffic to your website with both solutions, it’s best to use both to generate maximum returns. But you should also keep in mind that free search engines and paid search engines are very different solution with characteristics that you need to be aware of in order to make a good business decision.

Let’s start by reviewing the pros and cons of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for the “free” search engine traffic and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) optimization on the paid search engine platforms such as Google Adwords, Microsoft AdCenter and Yahoo Search Marketing.

So, let’s get started: Search Engine Optimization versus Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising…

• It’s a very fast way to generate targeted and relevant traffic – you can literally generate visitors to your website within 10 minutes. SEO takes much longer to see results.
• You can easily decide where to send each visitor (i.e. if a visitor searches on “dog training books”, you can direct them to your “dog training books” sales page.) With SEO, the search engines decide for you.
• You can easily test every aspect of your campaign from your headlines and ad copy to your product offers and calls-to-action on your sales page using Google Adwords.
• You can easily drive traffic for a broad range of keywords. With SEO, you’re wise to focus on fewer keywords (primary and secondary keywords per page).
• Your website doesn’t have to be “search engine friendly” for PPC to work. For example, websites built in “Flash” are known to be uN-friendly to search engines, but this is not an issue generating PPC traffic.
• With PPC you are optimizing your campaigns for conversion results, not for ranking criteria for a particular search engine.
• You can easily change positions on the page in order to find the best Return On Investment.
• Changes in “the rules” of Pay-Per-Click search engines tend to be smaller and less frequent than changes to the “free” SEO rules.

Just keep in mind that PPC has a price tag – so, you’ll need to focus on success criteria in advance to insure a positive return on investment (ROI) .  With PPC its best to have an exit strategy, or at least know when its time to pause your campaign and make adjustments that will improve your lead generation and sales.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)…

• It’s free! If you implement an effective (and legitimate, non-black hat) strategy it will work for a long time.
• You can generate a considerable amount of traffic for search terms that not be very economical to bid on with Pay-Per-Click.
• The long-term Return On Investment is often better than Pay-Per-Click. It’s slower at first, and the risk is higher if you don’t know what you’re doing, but it’s cheaper in the long term.
• Once you get good rankings, it’s relatively easy to maintain them with little incremental effort.
• You can build incredible momentum and dominate your market while your competitors bleed themselves dry trying to compete with you on PPC search engines as they pay for every click.

In Conclusion

SEO and PPC both have their place in any online lead generation or product/service marketing strategy for your business website. But the Search Engine Optimization field is riddled with mis-information and half-truths that can waste your time and budget, while producing minimal results.

In order to insure your success with SEO or PPC it is usually best to speak with someone that has solid experience implementing, measuring and managing both solutions, and in performing competitive analysis.  A professional will help you determine the best solution to meet your business, financial, and budgetary objectives.  You should be leary of those who push to hard toward one solution or the other.

Now that you are armed with a good overview of these two exceptional traffic and lead generation methods its time to start growing your business for the long haul!

If you’re looking for a trusted traffic generation partner to build a long-term relationship with, please contact us for a FREE Internet Business Analysis and Consultation!

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