Is PPC an alternatve to SEO?

Pay-per-click is a way of advertising on a search engine. The best known PPC is google adwords.

When a search is done on google we see websites that have been optimized for the keywords we entered into the search box and we see sponsored listings. Those sponsored listings will be charged each time someone clicks on them, but first there is a bidding process to determine who will appear at the top of the sponsored listings. The highest bidder for the price per click will get the chance to be the first listed in the search engine.

With this kind of advertising, you can still basically control your campaign as you get to create your own ad. You will also manage the target audience and still stay within the bounds of your budget. Most of the providers of PPC advertising will allow you to specify the target market, either by topic, industry or geographical location. You can also check if your ad gets to be shown at all and if it is competitive with the similar ads.

There are some guaranteed benefits when you get to maximize the PPC strategy.

 PPC lets you advertise to the whole of the online community. It is also relatively easy to set up.

 At first glance, PPC advertising may seem very expensive. Could it possibly happen that someone out there will go on clicking on your ad? This will definitely give you a large bill without the expected profit on your part. If this provides a lot of worries, be rest assured that there is a protection for you. Networks are able to recognize fraudulent clicks.

 You can also set a budget for a certain period. The moment your budget has been used up by the target number of clicks, your ads will no longer be displayed until the next period you want it again displayed.

 You will also be able to adjust well to changes in market demands and trends.

In deciding whether SEO or PPC will work best for you, think of your goals and resources. Take the PPC route for your short-term goals and choose SEO if you have long term ones.

In my website business I'm definitely in it for the long term, so I build my website with SEO firmly at the front of my mind. However, I have affiliate products that I want to promote to start earning money immediately, so for that, I use PPC.

Before even beginning to set up a google adwords campaign I recommend you do the 5 days to success with google adwords ecourse. It's free and could save a lot of money as PPC is not cheap if you don't know what you're doing.



Please feel free to leave comments for any of my posts.
Sharon