SEO vs PPC: How They Work to Increase Qualified Leads

Comparing pay-per-click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) is like comparing a Subaru Impreza with a Forester. Both marketing methods will get you where you need to go and both are highly capable… they just go about things in different ways. 

Both SEO and PPC can be effective at driving traffic to your website. Even better, the better you do with SEO, the more effective your PPC will be and vice versa. For that reason, PPC and SEO both deserve a spot in your marketing plan.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC) is the kind of digital marketing you want to run if you need traffic immediately. 

You can run several types of PPC campaigns, each with its own unique merits. The most common types of PPC campaigns are:

Display ads are the king of visibility. They get your brand in front of more people than any other kind of advertisement. Display advertisements don’t typically generate a high click-through rate. Instead, they generate impressions that build familiarity with your brand. So, display ads are budget-friendly—you’ll only be paying for the clicks you receive, not the impressions you generate.  

Search ads are ideal for converting qualified leads from your display ad campaigns. Instead of displaying an image, search ads appear as ad versions of organic search results in searches for keywords that you have targeted in your campaign. 

You’ll have to pay for the traffic you receive with PPC advertising, but you’ll appear in search results immediately. This makes PPC ideal for driving traffic to new websites or primary product pages. Like an Impreza, PPC ads are engineered for speed.

Ranking in organic search takes time. Google takes around 6 months to begin ranking a website in search and that website needs optimization geared around your SEO strategy’s search terms. Additionally, once your site begins to rank, you’ll need to continue doing SEO work or your rankings will likely not continue to improve.

This makes SEO a slow burn. You, or your marketing team, need to monitor your website page’s SEO and search performance to continue optimizing your site for Google’s search algorithm.

The optimization process is actually why we’ve compared SEO to a Subaru Forester. A site that’s indexed and ranking is best compared to a car that is optimized for all-around performance.  

So, how do SEO and PPC work together to improve the results you see from both? 

The answer, like most other digital marketing questions, comes back to one root cause—search engine algorithms. Google and most other search engines rank sites that offer a good user experience. 

Search engine optimization tells search algorithms that your site has the information users need using keywords, links, meta tags and technical optimizations. 

PPC tells search engine algorithms how customers interact and engage with your website. Using ads to increase your website traffic can give your organic traffic a boost because increased traffic tells search engine algorithms that customers enjoy what you offer. 

Are you looking for help with your digital marketing? The digital marketing team at JTech communications can help with both SEO and PPC—reach out and tell us about your business today!