Should You Invest More in SEO or PPC?

“Should I invest more in SEO or in PPC?”

I’ve been asked this question more times than I can count.

In truth, you may as well ask me which came first - the chicken or the egg?

The reality is that there is a time and place for every content marketing tactic which exists today, or it would not exist. At the end of the day however, what you choose to implement should be directly linked to what you need to achieve.

It is likely that you will have both short- and long-term goals as part of your content strategy, aimed at driving successful, measurable results.

PPC (Pay-Per-Click) would generally be part of a short term strategy, where SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is considered a long term strategy.

Think of it like this.

PPC will undoubtedly yield faster results than SEO. In fact, your content or advert will appear in the selected platform as soon as you commence payment for said service, whether it be Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, or even Pinterest and Instagram ads. On the flip side of the coin, any visibility gained during this time will end abruptly when you stop payment, hence it being viewed as short term.

Organic SEO however, will take more time to propagate across the web in order to yield the necessary results i.e. long term. And this is excluding the time it takes to plan and create your content.

So why then would anyone go this route?

There are of course a number of good reasons, and here are the top three.

Top 3 Benefits of Organic SEO

• Visibility gained is free (although there may be costs involved in creating certain types of content; just as there are costs for creating ads for your PPC campaigns),
• Organic content is perceived to have higher credibility by both search engines and people,
• Once your content is successfully loaded - with appropriate keywords and meta-descriptions - it will be indexed by Google and remain searchable forever, unlike paid ads.

So what is best - PPC or SEO?

In reality, to achieve your goals and get the best results, you need both.

ProTip:

At the start of your strategy, invest slightly more in PPC in order to see timeous results. As your strategy matures, slowly shift the bulk of your spend to content creation, bearing in mind that the more content you have (optimised with prime keywords), the more organic traffic you will gain as a direct result of this content, ultimately diminishing the need to repeatedly pay for exposure.

This is the very foundation on which Content Marketing is built. 

About the Author

Kobus van den Berg is the visionary founder of eMSDigital Group, a global B2B 'Enablement' powerhouse driving revenue growth, elevating CX, and revolutionizing buyer-seller engagement since 2010. Inspired by his wife and son, Kobus is a firm believer in the power of doing ‘good’ business to the benefit of all parties involved, as he strives daily to pursue the elusive balance between work and life. Kobus is a dedicated Espresso enthusiast and master mead-maker, with dreams of retiring on a family wine farm to keep himself busy with the finer things in life.

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