There is no doubt about the fact the online business’ success greatly depends on the traffic generated by the website. Traffic is like the supply of customers to a restaurant without which the business can’t sustain for a long time. For instance, suppose you open a restaurant in your city with some of the exotic food items; however if the restaurant does not attract any customers, the exact reason for opening the restaurant will not be materialized. In online business too, if you compare your website with the restaurant, the traffic is like the customers of that restaurant. Now you can easily understand why every webmaster toils hard to get an ample amount of traffic to their website. The more traffic a website gets, the more it will be able to fulfill the original purpose of the online business. If your main goal is to grow your online business, it’s important to drive traffic through search engines, as well as take appropriate steps to work upon the PPC campaigns if the situation demands. Both of these techniques are vital aspects of any marketing plan, but let us find out which is the right strategy for online business considering your exact circumstances.
To begin with I would like to tell an interesting story about two friends naming Jack and James. Jack and James both are very enthusiastic about webmastering. They want to make money from their website which they have just bought from a well-known website marketplace. However, they are full-time employees in an organization where they need to work very hard. Moreover, they need to travel daily 1-2 hours to reach their office. As a consequence, they don’t get much time to work on the website apart from the weekend. On a positive note, being a full-time employee they are paid well, hence they have a fixed fund to invest in. Suppose the amount is $X, xxx.
So on a random Sunday morning, they decide to invest the fund which they have already allocated in order to get improve the website’s traffic as that is not very impressive currently. After some online research, James seems to find out the solution to the traffic problem. So he makes a call to his friend Jack as his website is also facing the same trouble. Over the phone, James excitingly informs Jack about his newfound solution i.e. PPC or Google Adwords. However, Jack is not so excited as his friend and he tells James that he needs more time to do some additional online research.
On the next Monday during lunchtime, James informs Jack that he has already started the Google adwords campaign for his website and also enquires about his friend’s decision. Jack replies that he has decided to run an SEO campaign. Upon hearing this James is very much astonished and suggests that he should abort his plan immediately as after Google updates, SEO is not working. The argument continues for the entire lunchtime without any fruitful results as both of the friends stick to their original plans. They decide to share their respective results after one month.
After one month, Jack and James again meet during lunchtime. James is very excited to report that his website is already getting traffic and made some profit too. Jack does not seem that excited as his website is not getting decent traffic. And due to the cost of an SEO campaign, he is running into loss. James again suggests his friend opt for PPC. But Jack is adamant.
The story continues for the next 2-3 months. James is profiting from his website through PPC and Jack is making a loss due to running SEO campaigns continuously. In order to run respective campaigns, the fund of both Jack and James is decreasing pretty fast. James is spending $Xxx every month in the PPC campaign to profit around $Xx. Whereas Jack is also spending $Xx-$Xxx every month in SEO without any profit. However, during this period, there are some major changes. Although Jack’s website has not made any profit, the traffic seems to be growing continuously. On the other hand traffic and profit of James’s website is pretty much constant during this entire period. During the 5th month, all the allocated fund of Jack was finished. However, his website is now getting decent traffic and also making some money although very little. James’s fund is also almost finished but website traffic and profit remain pretty much the same. At the same time, there have been some major changes in their mindset too. While Jack has become even more enthusiastic about his website, the interest of James is declining. At the end of the 6th month, Jack’s website is making more money compared to James.
The above story is not about Jack and James only; there are thousands of webmasters who have faced such a situation. Now let me explain the exact reasons behind the above-mentioned situation.
SEO
If you are into a website, you would have probably heard the word Search Engine Optimization or SEO. Ideally, SEO is the process of utilizing targeted keywords and techniques to rank your website higher on the SERP page so that people enter your online business by clicking your link. This is vital as almost 80% of people prefer to use search engines like Google when they need to make a decision. Not surprisingly, those people are more likely to choose the websites that appear near the top of the SERP.
Due to the process of how SEO works, it has one major advantage over other techniques i.e. it brings you better leads for online business. Many of those users that land on your website through search engines will become long term customers and what is more, they will spread the word to other people who might become your future customers. Hence it is quite obvious why so many webmasters seek effective SEO services to rank better in search engines like Google, Bing, etc.
PPC
PPC or paid advertising can also be a valuable component of your online business if used effectively. PPC or pay per click is a method of search advertising in which you give money to respective search engines to show your website appear on the front page when someone searches for a keyword-relevant to your business. The main advantage of PPC over SEO is that it can get you instant traffic to your website. In most cases, SEO tactics take a long time to rank on search engines if you are not using proper SEO methods.
In those situations, PPC advertising is considered effective as people can get to see your website as soon as you make payment. However, this technique is quite risky too. Therefore if you can’t create a PPC campaign properly, you can lose thousands of dollars without yielding the desired results. So if you decide to opt for PPC, make sure you are selecting the keywords with minimum bid value in order to avoid huge loss.
Which is the Best?
This is a tricky question based on the exact niche of your online business. The answer to this question is not at all straightforward as there are many things to consider. In simple words, your ultimate goal should be to increase website traffic so that your online business generates more revenue. And in order to do so, you need to use both SEO as well as PPC depending on the surrounding factors. As a business owner, you should be aware of using these marketing techniques. You should remember, while SEO is important to produce quality leads and traffic, at the same time PPC is a great tool to attract instant attention to your online business and special periodic offers.