SEO or PPC and Adwords: Which is Best for Me?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, PPC stands for Pay Per Click.  Of the two, only PPC is officially defined as SEM or "Search Engine Marketing" but people often use that term to describe both.  There is much debate as to which of the two is more important or more effective.  We would argue that they are both important but that it very much depends on your individual situation.  As a rule, we would say that every organisation should start with a well optimised site.  To use PPC and Google Adwords effectively, you will need to demonstarte relevance of keywords, so it definitely helps to know what they are in the first place. We can deliver this through SEO.

SEO is achieved through "Organic" or "Natural" optimisation of your web pages and by increasing the number of links that point to your website.   Search Engine Optimisation should prove to be less expensive than PPC because it attracts users to your site due to its content, relevance and pure brilliance alone.  Also, it has been proved that, in most cases, people prefer to click on the "Organic" results rather than the "Sponsored" PPC links.  In the image above the "Sponsored Links" are those highlighted and to the right.

There is a caveat to this in that "Natural" SEO can take time to produce results.  If you are lucky enough to be in an industry where there is not too much competition or if you you are in a location where a search will only bring up your organisation and maybe one or two competitors, you should see results quite quickly. If this is not the case, and if speed is of the essence, then PPC could prove to be the better bet.

We mentioned before that your site should still be optimised if you choose PPC; this is because Google and the other Search Engines will still give priority to the best written and most relevant sites, even if you are paying. Optimisation can never, therefore, be a bad idea.

Whichever option you choose, and it may well be a combination of both, we will be happy to help you achieve the very best results for your organisation.