Organisations, both small and big are implementing methods to drive online traffic to their websites, especially through the use of search engines. The battle to have websites rank on top of search engine results has led to widespread use of methods like PPC marketing and SEO.
Pay-per-click or PPC marketing is a method wherein you place bids so that your ads appear on the ‘sponsored results’ section of the results page when someone makes a search including your keywords. It is known as PPC as you do not have to pay for the add, instead of for each time a user clicks on your advertisement. Some of the popular PPC platforms include Bing Ads, Google Ads (also known as AdWords) and Facebook Advertising.
However, many people wonder why and when one should undertake a PPC marketing campaign. Here are some circumstances where PPC marketing is highly effective:
When you want results immediately:
SEO is a technique suitable for the long-term perspective, driving the website towards ranking slowly and steadily. However, a PPC campaign delivers results extremely fast. As soon as your campaign is approved, it will be placed on top of the results page where millions of people can see it. This effectively drives traffic to the website in an instant.
When you are aiming for targeted traffic:
PPC marketing presents an opportunity to target your specific audience by adjusting the demographic requirements. You can select the specific gender, age, marital status, income bracket etc of the people who you wish to view your ads. This is instrumental in targeting the narrow band of audience and drive them to your website.
When you are promoting something time-sensitive:
When you are marketing events, products or services that are available only for a short duration, you must try to reach the maximum number of people before the expiration date. SEO takes time in delivering results, meaning that the traffic driven to you could be belated. However, PPC campaigns drive instant results and should be perfect for such marketing. An effective PPC campaign can deliver traffic to your website in just a few minutes.
When your website even compatible with SEO:
SEO is suitable only for websites that are rich with content and are updated regularly. This is necessary to ensure that the search engines find your website relevant to the keywords and keep them ranked on top. However, not all websites have these qualities. In such cases, PPC marketing is the most effective tool to generate traffic.
When you want to dominate your keyword search:
What is interesting about PPC results is the fact that they are displayed above the organic SEO results. Being in the top row, these generally receive a lot of clicks. By not performing any PPC marketing, these clicks will go to your competitor websites. So, if you want to be dominant in your keyword category, you must perform PPC.
These are some cases in which a PPC campaign is a more suitable choice than SEO. However, it must be noted that an effective marketing strategy is one that blends both SEO and PPC.