PPC and Buying Traffic: Is this the Best Way to Go?
Organizations and businesses of all sizes are clamoring for attention in the online market. Anyone familiar with this game knows that it is the all-important search engines that decide who wins and loses and it all comes down to getting their attention.
This is because more clients and customers will be directed to your site, products and services from the search engines than from any other source. According to Jupiter Research, 85% of all online traffic finds its point of interest through directions by the search engines.
This just goes to show how important website traffic really is to the modern business and why it must be obtained by all means necessary. This is where many people consider investing in increasing online traffic.
There are two ways to do this, one is commonly referred to as the organic method and involves increasing organic search results through the process of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). The other is the paid method and involves buying sponsored links that direct traffic to your site, like adwords. Both of these are very different and provide different results both in the short and long term.
So, which is the best way to go?
The truth you are about to see is that both of these tools should be used in conjunction according to the best needs of your business. To illustrate this very point, take a look over the most significant differences between paying for traffic and growing it organically.
When you use PPC, you can select a few specific search results for which your website and options will be the first of the responses. The cost of one click, when a visitor clicks on your link to be directed to your site, can range from a couple pennies to a lot of dollars depending on the demand for this position.
The two most important factors that determine the efficacy of such a venture are the quality of the search terms chosen and the managing of resources over the course of the PPC campaign. If not applied correctly a PPC campaign can be very expensive and attract the wrong crowd, this would be a waste of resources.
According to SEMPO, the authority on search engine marketing, only 11% of the billions of dollars spent on search marketing go to SEO and a full 87% go to PPC, but why is that?
The question gets more complex when you consider that SEO is actually 5 times as effective in the long term than PPC. So, why is so much invested in PPC each year? The answer is time and place. There is a time for SEO and a time for PPC. PPC has great effects in the short term and can be used to gather a large amount of attention to kick off a product launch or begin building brand recognition.
Nevertheless, if you are consideringthe long-term success of your campaign, you will eventually have to begin investing in SEO. You will find that SEO is not as fast acting in attracting online traffic but the costs are far more affordable and the progress made is solid and cumulative with any PPC efforts.