09/03/2021
SEO vs PPC – The In’s and Out’s
You have probably heard the words Search Engine Optimisation and Pay Per Click tossed around but you may not be 100% familiar with how each of these search engine marketing tactics work.
There are two main differences between SEO vs PPC. The first is how traffic is obtained and the second is where listings appear on the search results pages.
Organic Traffic: Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the organic way to rank in search engines. This means it does not require money – it’s free! Well, sort of. It does require time and patience.
SEO vs PPC – Making Your Site Visible Locally
If you are a small business, chances are you will want to target people near you. Another difference in SEO vs PPC is how you can optimize for local search. If you are running an ad campaign, you can use location based keywords or target a specific geographic location.
SEO proves to be a little bit more difficult. Have you ever noticed the map feature that appears when you search the best pizza restaurant? This is called the local pack. It shows the top three hits for locations near you that serve pizza (or whatever you are searching for).
In order to rank locally you must make sure that your business name, address and phone number are the same across all platforms – consistency is key here.
Other factors that can improve your rankings in local SEO include optimising your Google My Business account, using Yext (a data management tool to help get your business into local listings) and having a responsive website design.
Google recently rolled out mobile first indexing which means that they will use the mobile version of websites in order to rank. If your site is not mobile friendly there’s a good chance you will have a hard time moving up in search results.
If you are debating between SEO vs PPC there are a few things you should know about each before you jump in.
Components of SEO
There are several ways to optimize your website and move up in search rankings using SEO including on-page optimization, blogging, and backlinking. On-page optimization includes changing H1 tags to the keyword you want to rank for, making sure your images have alt text, adding your keyword to the copy on your site and writing titles and meta descriptions that include your keyword or keywords. This on-page optimization makes keywords prominent on your site so when search engines, like Google, crawl your pages they will see you as a reputable source and move you up in rankings. Check out more on our 10 steps to #1 Google rankings.
Blogging can do so much for your website. It can increase customer engagement, build trust and help you rank! For example, if you were to write a rich, keyword heavy blog, Google will see it as relevant information and push it to the top for someone who is searching for that keyword.
Link building is also incredibly important to your optimization process. Acquiring backlinks from reputable sites and from sites within your industry can boost your rankings. Backlinks show search engines that your business is associated with a reputable company which tells them that you too must also be a trustworthy source. Think like when someone whose opinion you highly value recommends a place to eat or where to get your car serviced – Google is basically seeing the same thing when it comes to backlinking.
Internal linking can also help you increase the quality of your site, create page hierarchy and can help users navigate your site. For example, if you write a blog about SEO and one of the main pages on your site is all about SEO, you can link back to this page.
Components of PPC
Pay Per Click or PPC literally means that you are paying every time someone clicks on your advertisement. Google shows four ads on the first page of results before organic search results and three ads at the bottom of the page after the organic results. Businesses tell Google they want to place their ads here and only pay once people click on them.
Here is an example of a search for “women’s clothing.” The top four hits are advertisements and the first organic result appears after the last ad.
At the bottom of the page after the tenth organic result, three more Google ads appear.
One of the most popular platforms (if not, the most popular platform) to set up your ad campaigns is Google AdWords. Google AdWords can easily measure your ROI. It shows you which ads are performing well and which ones are not as well as how many conversions you receive. AdWords will also show you how much you need to bid in order to be on the first page of search results or even how much you need to bid to be the very first result every time.
For PPC there are two types of ads, search network and display network. Search consists of text ads that show up when users search for specific keywords. You know those search results that say “ad” next to them? Those are search network ads and are so common some people barely recognize that they are advertisements.
Display ads consists of banner ads that display on other websites users visit. You have probably seen display ads but may not be fully aware of what they are or how they work. Display ads are used to retarget potential customers who have visited your site but navigated away without making a purchase. They may show recently viewed products to entice you to return to the site and keep shopping like the ad shown below.
This is one of the best ways to pick up lost sales and turn those potential customers into lifelong buyers of your products.
You will need to physically create advertisements for Google to show on its search results pages. Search ads are formatted with two headlines and a description and can also include extensions which give people additional information. These can include call buttons, location information and links to specific pages on your site. Extensions can make your ads even more appealing and offer additional information for potential customers.
This ad for hotels.com shows two headlines, a description, a link to the page they want users to land on and two extensions. Every part of this ad is short, sweet, to the point and entices users to click! Using words like “official site” builds trust with potential customers right off the bat. The two extensions that are shown, let the user skip right to specific pages on the site.
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