As a small business, your website can be the largest advertising weapon in your arsenal. But how do you advertise your website?
There are two common methods for using search engines, such as Google or Yahoo, to attract visitors to your website: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay per Click Advertising (PPC).
We discussed the differences between SEO and PPC in Part 1 of our series on Search Engine Optimization. But don’t stray too far, because we’ll cover the differences and benefits to each right here:
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization is considered the natural search results, or the most relevant websites to a search phrase. Search engines use a variety of factors to rank websites, including keywords in your website, links to your website, and even local and social network data!
Optimizing your small business website often means competing with other businesses in your area, country or the world! You’ll need to make your website more relevant, get more links and overall become more attractive to search engines — But without doing anything “illegal” in the eyes of the search engines, which could get your website banned.
Benefits
- 75% of all web traffic from search engines comes from the natural results (compared to PPC).
- Long-term benefits as months build on past months until you reach the top. SEO work should continue, but won’t need to be as aggressive, or costly.
- Greater ROI as SEO costs fold into future conversions over time. PPC costs are always per single conversion.
Pay per Click Advertising
PPC has the benefit of being similar to existing forms of advertising where you create an ad and then pay for its placement on search engines and other websites.
On search engines, your website ad will appear near the top or bottom depending on how much you pay for each click. Clicks are bid on, like an auction, with the highest bidder generally getting the highest placement.
Benefits
- Instant results. Your ad can be placed in hours, whereas Search Engine Optimization can take months to see any results.
- Guaranteed clicks. Except for research and management fees, you will only pay when someone visits your website.
- ROI tracking let’s you quickly see which keywords have the highest conversion rate so you don’t waste time optimizing your website for keywords that just won’t bring in business.
Conclusion
Choosing Search Engine Optimization or Pay per Click will depend entirely on your website situation and budget. However, it is generally recommend to start with PPC as it allows you to quickly research effective keywords. As your budget increases, you can then optimize your website for the best keywords without wasting time or money on the wrong ones.
If you’re interested in improving your small business website’s search engine performance, check out our Search Engine Success services, which include professional SEO and PPC management.
