A very simple but frequently asked question by most of the companies who are having or are trying to have an online digital platform. But the answer is not that simple. The reason being, the above question asked, cannot have a generalized answer as it entirely depends on factors like the current situation of both the company as well as the market, the objectives you are aiming or planning for, and the marketplace you are targeting.

The roots of all these things go back to the basics i.e. Digital Marketing Strategies. There are a few steps you ought to take before deciding on the latter. The first being to determine your target audience and understand your potential customers and then find out or get information on how they are using the web.

These are keys that will help in determining whether an organic search or paid search, an SEO or PPC, or a combination of them is the best way to approach keeping in account the uniqueness of your brand and your products and the services being offered.

SEO vs PPC

There are differences between SEO and PPC. They are as follows:

SEO(Search Engine Optimization):

1. Website traffic:
   SEO helps in increasing the traffic flow in your website and gives you more opportunities to make the viewers or customers aware of your business and promote the reason why they would buy from you.
2. Awareness:
   SEO helps in making your brand visible in search engines like Google in respect to the keywords which you have targeted presents your business in front of potential customers in a similar manner to that of advertisement, and it also ensures brand awareness.
3. Cost:
   SEO is the most inexpensive way to advertise in the digital marketing platform.
4. Strategy:
   SEO is a long term strategy for digital marketing.
5. Sustainability:
   SEO gives you a bonus. Suppose because of some reason you can’t pay for the advertisement, you are not to worry, SEO doesn’t leave you high and dry, and helps to sustain your business ads for some time.

PPC(Pay Per Click):

1. Visibility:
   PPC ensures that your ad gets a dominant place on the page. Making it visible for everyone. According to statistics 3 out of every 4 people to visit the page take a notice of the ad at the top of the page.
2. Budget:
   PPC ensures and helps you to operate under a strict budget making it easier to maintain a fixed limit hence reducing extra expenses.
3. Cost:
   PPC is expensive but promises results too. It requires constant investments. And also requires a team of management and optimization.

SEO is an inexpensive process which is of a long term strategy and takes time. On the contrary, the PPC is a bit expensive but is of a short term strategy. They both have their own set of advantages and disadvantages.

The best advice will be …..

• If you can combine and use both of them simultaneously and with each other. Rather than choosing either one of them, it would be better if you use both, together.
• The amount of traffic can be increased by redirecting traffic by targeting clicks in organic as well as in paid for high-performing keywords.
• Keywords used and conversion data from PPC can be fed into organic search, SEO.
• You can test your keywords and also strategize in PPC before posting or committing to long-term strategies of SEO.
• Will increase confidence and awareness by having the best of both worlds i.e. strong organic and paid visibility.