Okay, so you figured out that you need marketing. The next question then is what kind of marketing do you need? PPC, Pay Per Click, and organic search engine optimization are a great place to start.
Short answer
PPC is paid; organic is not.
Long Answer
PPC
Let’s take a look at a standard goggle results page. See the section at the top, above the thin line, and the right sidebar? Each of these results has a small yellow icon denoting it as an ad. That’s PPC and they are paid ads. You literally pay per click. Generally you would have a monthly or daily budget and the adwords software would post up your ad until you spend your daily budget. The price of each click is dependent on the competition for a particular keyword or phrase and can range from cents to dollars per click.
For PPC, Google doesn’t really care where you are sending those clicks. They don’t care about the quality of the website, and you should see traffic almost immediately. You are essentially buying relevant ad space.
On the inverse, when you stop paying for PPC, your traffic comes to a screeching halt with no long lasting results.
Organic SEO
Organic SEO is bit different.
Now look at the results below the thin line, or on the left larger block. These are the organic results. These results have earned their way to the top of the page by being ranked well by Google and providing relevant info to the keyword you searched for. They earned this spot. And if you are like me, you will prefer the results that are naturally acquired and ignore the paid results which may or may not be relevant.
Organic SEO is all about improving the quality of your content and your website to rank higher. It takes time and effort and may take 1-3 months to see results. Inversely, these results last a lot longer and once earned, don’t depreciate as fast.
Personally, I prefer organic SEO, as you come out with a higher quality product in the end. It lasts longer and results in a higher quality website and better leads, better traffic. That doesn’t mean PPC doesn’t have its place. If you need results fast or only short term, PPC can be very effective. If you have the marketing budget, organic and PPC can work together to really put your website on the map. But if you are like many small business owners with more limited budgets, organic SEO is the way to go.
