Your website Rocks; now what?!?
Web Traffic is critical to your success. Without visibility, your website will not generate leads. Generating traffic from search engines is great because people actively seeking your services find you. the most common ways to market your business via search engines are through Pay Per Click advertising and Search Engine Optimization. These two options are very different so it helps to know the ins and outs of each before you decide. We have put together some information to aid you in your search for more search engine generated business.
Pay per Click (PPC)
Pay per click advertising is a form of Internet Marketing where you pay each time someone clicks on your ad or link (commonly in search engines such as Google). PPC is expensive, although it can be very effective.
PPC Pros:
- The main advantage of a PPC is that your site will be in Search Engine Results Page’s (SERP’s) very quickly – usually within minutes or hours.
- Extremely targeted. You can set specific landing pages, and run ads for specific services, discounts, sales, etc.
- Placement. Can be top placed on the SERP more commonly than SEO since sponsored ads are typically on top of the organic listings.
- Depending on your budget, will generate more traffic than SEO
- Variant testing: test variables by driving traffic to separate but similar landing pages and track results.
PPC Cons:
- Bogus clicks – telemarketers, bots, etc. will click on your ad, costing you.
- Keyword research is costly and sometimes trial and error
- It’s expensive. Each click varies from $2-20.
- You set a daily budget and once that is reached, your ads are shut off for the remainder of the day.
- It doesn’t work for everyone.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
A popular story is the turtle and the rabbit. The turtle wins the race because he takes the slow, steady approach, while the rabbit sprints and naps, sprints and naps. SEO is like the turtle and PPC is like the rabbit. Both are nice, but sometimes one wins the day over the other. With SEO, instead of paying a daily budget to show up in SERP’s, you are there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
There are two main types of SEO: On-page optimization and off-page optimization. Off-page optimization focuses mainly on how many links you have coming into your site. Each incoming link is like a vote of confidence (no two votes are equal (votes are weighted by several factors)).
SEO Pros:
- Once you are in SERP’s, you tend to stay there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- Lower cost, long term.
- Generates value for a website and/or business (great investment).
SEO Cons:
- Your website will move up in SERP’s over time, typically from 1 month to 2 years.
- Ability to get results is hard to measure. Based on the quality of SEO company you hire, keyword quality, keyword competition, website quality, etc.
- Variant testing impossible
