The Difference Between Google Ads (PPC) and Organic (SEO)

What are SEO & PPC? Organic Search also called Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a collection of strategies, tools, skills, and activities designed to increase a website's visibility in the organic search results for searches that your target customers would use to find a small business like yours. This generates a higher quantity and quality of website traffic.

Pay Per Click (PPC) most commonly refers to Google Ads that appear in the search results above the organic results. You pay for these ads by selecting several search phrases (ex: best fried chicken) where you want to be visible and then bidding for an ad spot. The cost of that ad placement depends on the competitiveness of that phrase. You only pay if someone clicks your ad, which can amount to huge cost-savings over other forms of advertising.

Both SEO and PPC can be done the hard and expensive way or the streamlined and affordable way. It will come as no surprise that at Vade Mecum Marketing, we're partial toward affordable PPC services and affordable SEO services.

What Are Affordable Pay Per Click v.s Affordable SEO Goals?

The first goal is to keep PPC and SEO affordable because when we focus there first, we stay on track with results-oriented thinking. Affordability doesn't mean cheap and low-quality. Small businesses deserve high-quality marketing but often don't know that you can get high-quality without an exorbitant price tag when you learn how to do PPC and SEO the affordable way.

Around 63% of website traffic comes through search engines--primarily Google. Around 40%-50% is organic and the rest comes from paid search. While 10-15% coming from paid search may seem minuscule compared to organic, both are equally important. The goals for these forms of affordable online marketing will tell you why.

The goal of affordable pay per click is to help a small business with little to no visibility quickly become more visible. And in the short-term affordable PPC can help your small business start generating revenues NOW that you need to function and grow.

The goal of SEO and affordable SEO consulting is to build trust online with both Google and your target customers. In SEO, trust + relevance = greater visibility, a.k.a. more high-quality traffic to your site. In other words, your website is both trustworthy and providing what your customers are looking for in search. It takes time to achieve this, but as you do you have a sustainable, consistent flow of high-converting traffic where you don't need to pay for every click.

Which is More  Affordable? SEO or PPC?

In the long-term, SEO is more affordable because you don't pay for every click. But because it takes time to build visibility, you may not generate enough revenues to meet your operational and marketing costs in the short-term.
In the long-term, relying too heavily on PPC is very expensive because you pay for every click. But in the short-term, it can provide you with the revenues you need to be able to invest in affordable digital marketing services that continually cut costs to deliver a higher ROI. With that said, even though PPC is more expensive than SEO, you can certainly do things to make PPC more affordable for a small business like:

Targeting locally
Targeting narrowly
Keeping your AdWords Quality Score Up
Targeting lower price words
Excluding irrelevant words (negative keywords)
Improving your ads
Streamlining landing pages
Adjusting your bidding strategy
Timing your ads
Analytics
Getting creative