Search Engine Marketing: Is PPC Better Than SEO?
By Anna Johnson on December 22nd, 2009Among the sessions at the recent SES Chicago event was a debate over the relative merits of organic search engine optimization versus pay-per-click advertising: was PPC better than SEO?
As reported by WebProNews, the debaters included Dave Naylor, Christine Churchill, Michael Gray, Karen Weber and Rand Fishkin.
Christine Churchill argued that PPC was better than SEO on a number of fronts. She cited research by Engine Read finding that traffic derived from PPC ads led to slightly higher conversion rates, higher average order sizes, and greater average time spent on site than did traffic from SEO.
In addition, Churchill pointed out that Internet marketers using PPC reaped such benefits as being able to QUICKLY (in as little as minutes or hours, if not days):
- get on the first page of Google (or other search engine);
- get entire campaigns up and running;
- advertise in response to seasonal trends or market developments;
- test offers, ads, keywords, landing pages, design, copy and other online marketing elements;
- get feedback on what’s working… and what isn’t;
- boost traffic; and
- pause campaigns.
To sum up, according to Karen Weber, PPC offers these benefits:
“speed, flexibility, it’s unlimited, it’s goal-driven, and it’s controllable. You can quickly manipulate keywords to those that drive conversions, you can quickly change bid prices, and you can quickly get in and out of the market. You can turn your campaign on and off, and change ad copy, keywords, etc. You can target a much wider range of keywords, adhere to a budget, and have an immediate impact on sales.”
But what about SEO?
After all, as pointed about by Rand Fishkin, PPC ads get about 10 percent of the clicks that SEO listings get. And you don’t pay per click!
At the same time, the increasing “personalization” of Google’s search results may well boost the relevance of PPC just as it lessens the importance of SEO.
If you’re not familiar with personalization, the implications are as simple as this: when I’m logged in to my Google account and I search on certain keywords, the top-ranking results are NOT necessarily the same results that appear when I’m NOT logged into my account. Google has personalized my results based on my status as a Google account holder and my previous usage of its search engine.
At the same time, with Google’s introduction of mixed-media (images, videos, text) search results along with, most recently, its real-time search results, the task of ranking highly on anyone’s (personalized) organic search engine listings just got harder.
Nevertheless, in my mind, while all these points are good arguments in favor of implementing PPC, they are NOT arguments against SEO.
Sure, with a limited budget, Internet marketers need to allocate resources to those activities that generate the highest return on investment (ROI). If that means choosing between PPC and SEO, then it may well mean choosing PPC.
But there is a significant amount of research indicating that SEO and PPC actually complement and support each other. See Why You Need Organic AND Paid Search Engine Listings and more recently Organic Search Listings Boost PPC Ad Effectiveness.
So while you may be justified in pouring more effort and resources into PPC, I wouldn’t abandon SEO… if only to help your PPC campaigns!
Source: Chris Crum, “What’s Better: PPC or SEO?” WebProNews, December 9, 2009
