It has been an ongoing match between these two SEM (Search Engine Marketing) for years.
Before I even started this blog, I had no idea on how to create a blog or even which website do i start on ?
My first instinct to solve any of queries that i encounter is to search Google. Among all the search engine, Google provide higher-quality results for each user by understanding the search intend and finding the most relevant website that match each query.
According to the latest Net Market Share report, it reviews that Google is the top search engines among other search engines with an outstanding of 81.5% market share.
So which is a better tool ? SEO or PPC ? Let’s analyse these two techniques by searching for property agents in Singapore.
SEO
Search Engine Optimisation is use to increase the visibility of the web page through a search engine’s unpaid result. Ranking up your site requires continuous optimisation of webpage to strengthen the position in these naturally occurring search results. Therefore, the web must be clear what content does the business have to offer thus the search engine “spiders” can crawl and relate possible consumers. SEO takes time to generate returns as it takes time “climb” the ranks. Hence, it is better for business in the long run.
PPC
These paid advertising usually will appear at the top of the search thus allowing to quickly leverage search engine traffic by paying or bidding for keywords that are related. As the name suggest is Pay-per-click ads thus companies only pay for it when they are clicked on. However, pay per click marketing costs can add up at a fast pace which might be costly for some companies. PPC will allow campaigns to be published and be seen immediately. It is good for short term marketing tactics as it can be very costly. Unlike SEO, once payment stops, the links will stop as well.
It is my personal opinion that the more optimal way to improve your company’s online presence and visibility is through SEO rather than the pay-per click method. Although SEO is significantly more tedious as it requires you to establish your visibility first in order to appear at the topmost position of the results page, you will eventually get there. Once you achieve this, not only will you have visibility and presence, you will also acquire the skill of updating your website for relevance which allows the up-keeping of your website to become a piece of cake. This is also more cost efficient as you would not have to constantly fork out money to keep your website’s position on the page. Instead of investing resources each time, it is wiser to invest the beginning and build up the skill of maintaining the website for relevance.
By optimising the website for SEO instead of paying per click, it gives users a feeling of reliability and accuracy. This is why, whenever I use Google, I never click into the sponsored websites that appear at the top of the list as I feel like they are giving me the hard-sell. I choose to scroll down instead, as more often that not, organic searches provide me the answers that I need.
What do you think? Which of these methods do you feel is more reliable ? Do share your thoughts with me! Are you exactly like me when you see advertisements?
Mark Blog 
Great insights with regard to the topic Mark. Personally, if I just set up a business, I would utilize PPC as one of the methods to gain exposure in the early stages, however, like what you mentioned, it would only be for short term as it may not be cost-efficient in the long run. As you can see, those websites that appeared while using SEO have garnered a name and reputation for themselves hence like what you also mentioned, they are more reliable and assuring to clients like myself. I honestly do not condone such PPC adverts as they may also be the solution for my answer, however, at times when It comes to big transactions (monetary) such as booking flights and hotels, I tend to go for the more reputable websites than those PPC. What do you think could be done to PPC ads to make them more attractive and less shady?
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Hi Nicholas Delfino, thanks for the comment. I would say making PPCs more attractive would be tough as people have a very bad impression about PPC from the start. The only thing I would say is give a guarantee on the PPC ads, then on the website itself, you place an interesting video to better explain your products. MOST IMPORTANTLY, I would say is giving consumer guarantees.
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Hello Mark, I agree with you that I feel a little skeptical about those sponsored websites so I probably will go for the SEO option to build a long term strategy for my own business unless I have a lot of budget to use PPC. Any tips I should look out for when using SEO?
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Hi Jaslyn, thanks for commenting. These are 2 important tips you need to know! Firstly, you need to remove any item that slows down your website, if your web page takes about 10 seconds to load, no one will attempt to enter again. Secondly, use a trustworthy web to link to you. Giving example, if Apple puts up a link to mention about your business, people will not have doubts about your product.
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Enjoyed the article as it clearly explains the Pros and Cons of SEO and PPC. I have a better understanding of both and how it will be beneficial to different companies. I agree with you how people tend to scroll away from PPC. Is there any software or methods to climb up to the top SOE in a shorter time?
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Hi Paige, thanks for the comment. There’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on SEO. But there are many ways to improve, examples will be to have more images, no error in your website, the better the speed and performance, the higher the rank in SEO. SEO requires constant improvement and is not a one-shot thing.
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I feel like nowadays it’s not SEO but GO, Google Optimisation 😀 I believe that all blogs need to speak Google in their algorithm in order to be on the front page but it is an extreme competition with other brands. For smaller brands that have little to no understanding they should try other marketing methods.
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Hi Sabrina! I completely agree with you that now is about Google Optimisation as other search engine has fallen way behind in comparison to Google. Smaller companies may have to use PPC to better expose their brand to the public and at the same time build up their SEO thus to better “climb” the ranking of their brand.
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