SEO vs PPC: Which is the right approach for your business?

But why should you have to choose? SEO and PPC complement each other in a full spectrum strategy approach. We explore each approach to help you decide what’s the right strategy for your business.

What’s the difference?

Fundamentally, the differences between SEO and PPC are how traffic is obtained, what it costs you and where you will appear on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page).

SEO – Search Engine Optimisation

This refers to a set of techniques used to get your website ranking organically higher on SERP.

It’s free to implement from a monetary perspective but requires time and patience. SEO does not yield quick results and you will need a degree of know-how when it comes to deploying an effective SEO strategy. At iCandy Design, we can help get your business on the correct SEO path and ranking higher.

PPC – Pay Per Click 

As the name suggests, you pay when someone clicks on your advert on the search results page. 

Unlike SEO, you can almost instantly see results and it’s an effective method to promote a time-sensitive offer or drive highly targeted traffic. PPC can be used across both the search and display network as well as platforms such as Facebook, meaning the opportunity to find and reach your target market is huge. PPC does require you to tweak the campaign and optimise it, otherwise you could end up not making the most of your budget. Find out more about the risks and rewards of PPC campaigns here. The team at iCandy Design are adept at handling various sizes of budgets for PPC and can manage this for you so your campaign works effectively.

So, which is the right one for my business?

There are some key questions you need to ask before you embark on a set strategy. Do you have a marketing budget? How niche is your business? How competitive is the industry you’re in? From an ROI perspective, it is time vs money. SEO should be built into a long-term strategy as it takes time, but you will slowly grow traffic and the quality of that traffic will be better. PPC will get your adverts showing immediately, but once your budget has run out, that’s it. Remember, clicks do not necessarily mean conversions.

Both approaches have their pros and cons, but ultimately if you want to grow your business and increase sales, you need to boost your traffic. Using both tools together can be an effective strategy. PPC can be a great starting point to help push traffic to your site. You can then implement SEO to begin converting that paid traffic to organic.

Finding the optimal mix

At iCandy Design we can help you strike the perfect balance for your business. Get in touch with our knowledgeable team to start boosting your web traffic today!