SEO and PPC: When to Choose Each in Your Digital Marketing Plan

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In fact, the perfect summary is described in the steps of Inbound Marketing:

attraction;
conversion;
sale;
retention.
The first part involves very challenging work. Only a benefits of using our homeowner database good traffic generation system can attract a good number of people with the profile you want to attract.

And there are several ways to generate qualified traffic to feed your sales funnel and make your marketing strategy a success. Among the most well-known are SEO and PPC.

But how do each of these options work? And most importantly, which one is better? In this post, we'll show you everything you need to know to decide when it's best to use SEO or PPC to get the best results.

Shall we begin?

In this article you will see:

What is SEO?
What is PPC?
14 Relevant SEO and PPC Statistics You Should Consider
When is it best to use SEO in your digital strategy?
When is it best to use PPC in your digital strategy?
What is SEO?
The term SEO (which comes from the English "Search Engine Optimization") and means: search engine optimization .

In other words, it is a set of techniques that help make your website easier to find for Google and other search engines.

Let's say, for example, that you sell toys for children aged 3 to 5. When parents with children this age search for a product like yours on Google, what they'll see depends on your SEO work.

If you have a well-structured strategy, potential customers are likely to find your site. Otherwise, they will visit a competitor's page and purchase their products.

The same idea applies to both product pages, like the example above, and content pages, like blogs .

After all, part of the shopping journey involves doing a lot of research on the item before you even think about spending .

As you can see, despite the English name, the concept is simple. The practice is a bit more complex, because it involves several actions that only work well even when used together.

We can divide an SEO strategy into two parts: On and Off Page.

On-Page SEO is basically all the elements that you can keep under control, which means it's up to you to execute and see the results.

The good news is that on-page SEO represents the bulk of the strategy. Therefore, your chances of success depend mostly on your planning and execution, and much less on external factors.

And what would be Off Page SEO ? As the name suggests, it is the part of the work that involves elements outside the page and therefore beyond your absolute control. The best example of this is backlinks from other pages to your website.

Despite this, you can (and should) still plan your link building actions well to obtain backlinks, since they are very relevant for positioning.

What is PPC?
The term PPC also comes from English (Pay Per Click) and means "Pay per click". Out of context, the name may sound strange, but we are talking about a type of sponsored link.

Sponsored links are nothing more than text ads, the type found at the top of Google search pages.

Unlike SEO, which consists of organically positioning a page (without paying for ads) at the top of search engine results, sponsored links are a way of taking shortcuts.

Gone are the days when only search engines offered the opportunity to advertise with sponsored links. With the rise of social media , many platforms now offer this format of dissemination.

So where does PPC come into all this? Simple: it is one of the ways to pay for ads. In this form of payment, the advertiser pays for each click on the ad.

The idea is good because you only pay for those who are really interested in your message to the point of clicking. After that, it is your job to send the user to a landing page captivating enough to convert them .

lead generation
14 Relevant SEO and PPC Statistics You Should Consider
Since everything in digital marketing can be measured and compared, it is valid to see some relevant statistics about each strategy we are evaluating.

With this in mind, we've separated out 14 statistics: 7 about SEO and 7 about PPC ads. Take a look at what the data shows and draw your own conclusions.

Along with each statistic, we provide a brief context that might be helpful in understanding it better.

SEO
When looking at the data on SEO, keep in mind that user preference is still for this strategy. Therefore, although it takes longer to bring results, it may be a more relevant strategy in the long term.

1. Nearly 80% of users ignore paid ads in search results. People tend to prefer organic links to paid links, and of the links that do receive clicks, about 70% are organic .

2. Search is the #1 traffic driver among content websites, outpacing social media by over 300% . Organic search is one of the most effective channels and often serves as the first point of contact for customers with a business.

3. SEO drives 30% of traffic and 20% of revenue . SEO ROI accumulates over time as content producers establish authority and gain visibility . Potential customers often visit a website more than once before filling out a form or making a purchase. Therefore, ranking better for more keywords increases the chances of converting over time.

4. 36.2% of consumers recognize paid ad links, but do not click on them. Only half of users can differentiate between organic and paid links. Despite this, they prefer organic links to ads.

5. 88 % of local business searches on mobile devices result in calls or visits to the location within 24 hours. Local SEO has a huge ROI – the number of local searches has increased by 900% in two years. Plus, by optimizing content and pages for nearby audiences, businesses can see exponential growth in sales.

6. One in ten blog posts is cumulative , meaning it attracts new visitors over time due to increasing search volume. This is called Evergreen content , it stays relevant over time and consistently increases conversions alongside a solid SEO strategy.

7. Organic SEO is about 5.66 times better than paid search ads. One of the most basic explanations for this is the principle of Inbound Marketing . Instead of interrupting your audience with something they aren’t looking for, like an ad, organic communication draws them in with content they want and need.

seo guide
PPC
Even with the use of ad blockers and organic link competition, the data below shows that PPC is still very strong and can make your business a lot of money.

8. The first three ads on a search page receive 46% of the clicks on the entire page. This includes PPC ads and shows that good placement on the search page is highly relevant to conversions.

9. Businesses earn, on average, $3.00 for every $1.60 they spend on ads on Google Ads . Considering that the US market is much more competitive than ours, it is even possible to achieve better results here. This shows that PPC is a relatively inexpensive way to experiment, as well as providing a good return on investment.

10. More than 615 million devices use some form of ad blocker , known as Adblockers. Despite being bad for advertisers, this data reveals the good side of adopting PPC when investing in ads, since without clicks you don't get charged anything.

11. PPC ads can increase brand awareness by 80% . Despite the rise of ad blockers mentioned above, pay per click is still a powerful strategy to strengthen branding and, of course, sales.

12. Google algorithm updates don’t affect PPC ads. An update might force you to make changes to your SEO strategy, and in 2018 alone there were 3,234 updates ! That doesn’t happen with your PPC strategy.

13. 63 % of respondents in a Search Engine Land study reported that they would click on a Google ad. Since a high click-through rate (CTR) is the goal of both PPC and SEO, investing in ads can be just as good a strategy as organic ranking.

14. 75 % of respondents in a Clutch study said it's easier to find what they're looking for on paid ads. The reason the first page of results gets so many clicks is a mix of factors, including ease of use and achieving the search goal. Well-crafted PPC ads leverage both of these factors to succeed.

When is it best to use SEO in your digital strategy?
There are at least two situations where SEO stands out from PPC ads as the best option for your marketing strategy. Check out which ones they are!

Creating a sustainable sales machine
As we said at the beginning of this article, generating web traffic is the first step to selling a lot in the digital environment, and SEO is one of the best ways to achieve this.

And those who think that SEO is only valid for content pages are wrong, since it also has an impact on landing pages and, of course, on sales.

That is, SEO helps generate and nurture leads to create a true sales machine .


Strengthens the brand in the long term
SEO is perhaps the best way to build a reputable brand in the long term, as content is the entry point into the customer journey.

Google often rewards brands that focus their SEO efforts on relevant content, as this shows the search engine's real engagement with visitors.

Although it takes a few months for an SEO and content strategy to start bearing fruit, it usually takes quite a while. So if your goal is to stay on the market for a long time, invest in organic optimization now.

When is it best to use PPC in your digital strategy?
There's no denying that organic search is relevant to any long-term strategy. But there are times when it's better to invest in PPC to reap the benefits. Here's when to do it.

Sell ​​immediately
The great advantage of SEO is the generation of organic traffic , which allows you to sell for a long time to the same audience without having to reinvest the same amount each time.

It turns out that this takes a lot more time than using sponsored links. So if you want to sell right away, PPC is the way to go.

The return is not as sustainable as SEO, but nothing stops you from continuing down this path until organic strategies start to take effect.

Strengthening the brand in the short term
As we have seen, PPC ads can increase brand awareness by up to 80%. So, the same principle of immediate sale applies here.

If you need to build credibility and recognition quickly to start a project from scratch, relying solely on organic content may not be the best option.

The mere fact that the public sees your brand constantly will create the impression that your brand is strong in the market and, at the very least, will attract initial attention.

What's clear here is that there isn't necessarily a fight between SEO and PPC. The key is knowing how much to use each to get the best of both worlds. You now have plenty of relevant information to guide this important strategic decision.

One of the most comprehensive tools you can use in your traffic generation strategy, both for PPC and to help you with SEO planning, is Google Ads. Download our complete Google Ads guide!

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