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PPC vs SEO: Which should you start with and why?



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PPC vs SEO: Which should you start with and why?

Everyone I talk to, who just started out with a new website, will usually ask if they should be running PPC campaigns or SEO campaigns and I always tell them the same thing.  You can't really judge one better than the other when you're just starting out, mainly because you don't understand how everything is going to work for your industry or niche right now.  If you knew how everything worked, before you started, there would never be any sort of testing because you'd get it right the first time lol.

PPC and SEO are both great methods to bring in traffic and sales, but one costs money to get instant results with no residual effects and the other doesn't bring in traffic right ways but builds over time.  So, you really have to ask yourself "Do I need to make money right now or can I afford to build something that will profit over a long period of time?".  If you can wait for profits to roll in, start with SEO and build your website up to scare your competitors off the top of the SERPs.  If you need profits right away and aren't worried about rankings, start with PPC to bring in traffic today.  Below I'll be going more into detail as to which you should be thinking about and what to do PPC vs SEO: Which should you start with and why?


What SEO does for your website
When you start a website, you might not understand the importance of adding keywords to your titles, descriptions, content, etc. in order to boost your rankings.  Well, it's time to start optimizing your pages and posts in order to rank for all of the keywords you can imagine!  Of course, you'll want to boost your rankings for keywords that will bring in the most traffic possible, but it's a better idea to start with long-tailed keywords and build up to the shorter ones. 

If you can do your SEO just right, and boost your rankings over time for specific keywords, you can get a massive amount of traffic to your website and make more money than your competitors.  Maybe in a few years, you can make $1,000s a day and sell your entire business for millions PPC vs SEO: Which should you start with and why?

What PPC does for your website
If you don't have the time, or patience, for SEO then you'll want to focus more on PPC campaigns to bring in instant traffic.  What PPC does is place your ad at the top of the search results on the search engines or social networks and that is how you get your traffic.  You will pay a certain amount set by you for every click you get, sometimes it will even be lower than your maximum bid, but you will still pay regardless of when and where you get the click from.

If you can tweak your PPC campaign to perfection, you will be able to funnel customers directly to your website without having to do much work, and you will profit more than you can imagine.  Now, in my experience, it takes a lot of time to get your ads just right and bring in countless customers, but you should be able to become profitable after just a few days of tweaking your settings and targeting.

You need sales, in the beginning, to keep your business alive
If you need to make money right away and you can't wait for your rankings to boost up to send traffic in through the search engines after successful SEO campaigns, you'll want to focus more on PPC.  This is because PPC is instant traffic whereas SEO brings people in over time. 

SEO takes time buts sends in a lot of super targeted traffic that you don't have to pay for later on. 
PPC is instant but you pay for each click you get and once you stop paying, the traffic stream dries up.

Focus on what's working and fix what isn't
If you have a PPC campaign up and running that is working well, focus on that and make it even better so you can make more money.  If your SEO campaign is doing great things, focus on that and build up your authority to a point where people are always coming to you for whatever they need.

Do both if you can afford to
It's not surprising that both SEO and PPC cost money, so if you can actually afford to do both then I would highly suggest you try it out.  Set up your PPC campaign and then switch over to SEO and do what you can to boost your rankings.  After a few days, you can go back to your PPC campaign and start editing for perfection, then shift back over to SEO and continue on. 

Time is money, and SEO does take a bit more than PPC, but the time invested into both at the same time should compile and build your website's profits more than if you were to do just one of these traffic methods successfully PPC vs SEO: Which should you start with and why?


In conclusion
You don't need SEO or PPC to run a website, but you will likely need them if you want traffic and some sales, so figure out which one is best for you in the beginning.  If you don't have much funding, go with SEO and invest your time to build your rankings.  If you have the funds, but not much time, invest more into PPC and tweak your campaign every few days to build your profits.  Now, if you can afford to do both and you have the time to invest, I would do that and compile your profits PPC vs SEO: Which should you start with and why?


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https://www.seoclerks.com/user/TommyCarey

Thanks!

Tommy Carey

Comments

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anwebservices
For new websites i would suggest both, as much it's affordable. Nowadays with so many websites around and so big competition in almost every possible niche, it really takes time to appear near top of search results even with good SEO strategy. So this two tactics combined can bring more revenues and traffic from beginning and in long run.

To get even better results i would also add social media marketing. Consistently promoting blog posts and products by using digital marketing influencers with good rating and large audience (followers).

And yet another thing, it's good idea to develop own affiliate system if you have your own products for sale. Recently i noticed some excellent WordPress premium plugins at CodeCanyon which are really great for it. So you get your affiliates to drive you traffic and boost sales at same time.



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cmoneyspinner
Oh? SEO + SMM + PPC = Traffic and Sales
OK! I knew about the SEO + SMM combination. Now I understand the importance of all three. But if I am a newbie trying my hand at building a new website, I think I would do one at a time. Which would you suggest I do first, second, and third?



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Corzhens
I guess it is more practical to use SEO methods especially if you have the time to spare and you know one or 2 of the methods that you can do by yourself. SEO work is not that difficult especially if you have slack time of 1 hour or longer to spend on the SEO work for your site. With PPC you have to spend and even if the budget is small but it entails expenses that you have to recoup somehow. What if the PPC is not that effective in giving your site a good number of traffic?



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Martinsx1
SEO is not easy to being with, it's good that newbies are well informed about what it takes to be in the SEO business in order for them to know exactly what they are heading into. It takes time and effort before one can get the desired results in SEO but once it kicks off nice and good, then your success is all but guaranteed.



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Kakashi2020
I would choose SEO as the better choice than PPC. I believe that PPC campaigns doesn't really work in the field of sales and conversions. You'll just get visits with just minimal convertions. While SEO can definitely help you in the long run.



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centurion
Definitely SEO- Search Engine Optimization. Search Engine optimizations are 3 types-
1) White Hat SEO
2) Black Hat SEO
3) Grey hat SEO

Now a days peoples are not doing grey hat SEO-similar enough with white hat SEO. Black Hat SEO gives you some times benefit but not for life time benefit. Only white hat SEO will give you traffic/organic traffic/ generic traffic from search engines and worldwide directories for the life time to your website. White hat SEO have 2 parts- On page optimization and Off page optimization. A perfect white hat SEO needs some times for start to giving result to your website but definitely the technique will give you 3 benefits for the life time-

1) You will get traffic from worldwide search engines for the life time.
2) Your website position on search engine result page will increase day by day.
3) Your website will get a page rank.

For these reasons I shall select SEO for my website to get traffic/Organic traffic/sales for long term.

Thanks
Centurion



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Kakashi2020
If you have a pretty good business then I would suggest some affordable PPC but if you are just starting out then it's best to farm out your SEO.



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jaymish2
SEO is tough. It takes a while, it also takes some mad skills. However I also prefer that you use SEO. You just need to learn , take a class and try different strategies eventually something will work. I really don't like PPC at all. I don't like that you need to buy your traffic. The chances of it converting in my opinion are nil. At least with SEO people maybe genuinely looking for what you are selling or blogging about.



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Corzhens
I guess I will have to settle for SEO because I have the patience and perseverance although right now I don’t have the time. I know of website owners who are doing the SEO work themselves, particularly the uploading of fresh contents regularly. SEO work is not that difficult but it takes a lot of time and patience when it comes to the effect that can take months before you can see the positive results of the SEO work you have done.



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Chinet23
I can see that the choice depends on your priorities and availability whether its funds or time and effort. It looks like SEO is better for beginners in terms of the learning experience. But if you want to reap the results faster then it's PPC. Working in disputes department for both debit and credit cards though, I've heard a lot of customers complaining not getting their desired result when they paid for this service though.



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Jeane
One business I know spent more than $100K on PPC ads when they launched their blog and in less than a month they were getting about 100,000 people visiting the site each day.

That is why when choosing between PPC and SEO it also depends on how much money one is willing to spend to promote their new website. If I had a lot of money to promote the site then I'd opt for PPC initially because you get immediate results.

For SEO, as it has been mentioned, since search engines are always changing (with many search engine algorithm updates each year), as long one has the patience and is willing to continually change their SEO strategies, then this would be better option because it won't cost you a thing and as long as your site can be easily found in the SERPs then you'll get lots of free and laser targeted traffic = more $$$$.

Using both isn't all that bad either. PPC for building awareness. SEO for drawing in customers who actually want to buy products or services you are selling or promoting. Win. WIn.



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stbrians
Two important ways to market your blog-PPC and SEO. One spends money and the other is free but they all bring in traffic. I love this.



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Gilgamesh
I strongly recommend that we should start in SEOClerk because it is a forgiving place where you can start in building valuable knowledge. We will need it for us to grow much more so that we can pursue our dreams. Also it is a good place for begginers especially if you have a lot of questions many people right here will answer that for you. We can help a newbie to become an intermediate.



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