March 27

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Is SEO or PPC Better?

By Jason Khoo

March 27, 2020


Welcome to another edition of Zupo SEO Talk and Tea 

Today, the SEO conversation we'll be having is, which is better SEO or PPC? A really common question I get all the time. And today's tea of course is a Dragonwell Green Tea. It's probably one of my more favorite teas to drink in the morning and also one of my more favorite teapots. So let's go ahead and get some brewing and get some talking SEO.

So which is better SEO or PPC? Now that's a question I get all the time. And full disclosure, I am an SEO that is, most of my training and years of experience have been in SEO. So therefore I generally have an SEO bias. But best way to answer that, and I know you're going to love this is there is none that is better. So let me repeat that. SEO and PPC, there's nothing inherent about either one that is better, but let me explain the two different styles of marketing and then I will go ahead and discuss why one might be better for you as opposed to another.

So SEO, let's explain SEO first and then we'll go into PPC next. SEO is the search engine marketing method of trying to get your search results high on organic search. So common misconceptions, you cannot pay Google to help your rankings better. That's a huge misconception and that's not really the case. So for organic ranking and SEO generally where the success is, it's it takes a long time. Generally it's a very longterm, almost one of the longest terms of marketing strategies compared to social media or other paid advertising. Organic SEO takes a while. It can take anywhere from six months to two years to rank. Also, you cannot pay Google and it takes a lot of resources on your own site and PR and being out there in the community to get your site ranked.

Google AdWords on the other hand is the complete opposite. Google AdWords or Google Ads as it's now called today, or PPC, lots of synonyms for it. It's much more of a pay to play. You pay Google, you have your ad show up on the Google search results, and that's pretty much it. You don't have to do any extra work. You don't have to go do any digital PR, investing all this long time. Once you pay Google for the bid on that keyword or to have your ad show up, you show up on Google. So Google Ads is a much faster way of getting your site to be seen in search results. The caveat is the second you stop paying, your ads disappear. So it's definitely one of those where you're only here because you're paying for it.

SEO, on the other hand, I like to say it's like planting a tree. When you start SEO, you plant a seed into the ground. You're not going to see anything show up for a while, six months, maybe even a year. But once that seed begin becomes a sapling grows into a plant, into a tree, soon it will be very difficult to remove that tree. And that's the same thing with SEO. SEO is something where if you invest the time, you may not see the results in the beginning, but once you grow and it becomes self-sustaining, it becomes powerful. It is very hard for someone to remove you. Therefore, as opposed to PPC, where you stop paying, you're gone forever, SEO will require a lot of work on other people's side to overtake you. So all the time you've invested in planting that tree or investing that time into your SEO, your competitor will have to invest that same if not more time to remove you.

So the benefit for SEO is it does take a long time, but it also takes a long time for you to be removed. Pay per click, you pay to get to the front of the line. You have your ad show, but the second you stop paying, you're out of the line, right? So that's the best way I can answer it. There is none that are better, but it more depends on what your business wants. If you want a more longterm strategy that you can invest time in and you're going to have a much stronger longterm runway of success, SEO may be better for you. Pay per click, if you are needing results relatively quickly and you need to show results, get your ROI quickly, pay per click may be better.

And again, the last thing I want to note though, it's not like you can't do both, right? So you can do SEO and PPC together. That's always an option as well. So I hope that helps clarify the question. The question in itself is faulty SEO, PPC, none is actually better than the other. What is more important though is which one is more in line with your business needs and the business strategy at hand. So I hope that clarifies the question. I'm going to go ahead and enjoy some green tea and when you decide if you want to do SEO or AdWords or Google Ads, I always call it AdWords, hopefully that shines some more light. I hope to see you guys again and if you guys have some time, you like this video, go ahead, subscribe. Enjoy guys.

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Jason Khoo

About the author

Jason is founder and CEO of Zupo, which is an Orange County based SEO consulting agency helping construct powerful long term SEO strategies for our clients. Jason also enjoys multiple cups of tea a day, hiding away on weekends catching up on reading and rewatching The Simpsons for the 20th time.

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