PPC vs. SEO: See How To Decide On What Is Best For Your Small Business

The prosperity of your site can be incredibly important to the success of your business. If you want to boost the traffic going to your business's website, there are essentially two main options available to you:

- Pay-per-click (PPC)

- Search engine optimisation (SEO)

So - exactly how do you decide which one will prove great for your business?

PPC advertising (see - pay per click marketing ) is provided by advertising programs such as Yahoo marketing service and Google Adwords, which allow you to pay for traffic. The ads that you pay for are shown in the sponsored results section of the internet search engine results pages. The amount that you pay for this form of advertisement, depends on the competitiveness of your keywords. Even so, the benefit of PPC is that every time the advert is clicked on, the search user will be sent right to your website.

Compared to PPC, SEO is all about directing traffic to your website through free methods and techniques. Nevertheless, with SEO more time and patience can be required. SEO is used to get your site ranking naturally as close to the top of Google as you possibly can. If done properly, over time SEO will help your site to reach the top of Google - letting you experience the rewards of increased, targeted traffic.

If you have little online experience, SEO could be a little tricky to get your head around. This is the reason most businesses will ask their web design company to include SEO as part of their design package. Alternatively, you can outsource the expertise of an experienced SEO company (see - Essex SEO service ).

So - if you're wanting to increase your site's website traffic and grow your business, which should you opt for? SEO or PPC?

When you are trying to choose which is best for you, ask yourself these 3 key questions:

1. What is your budget?

Firstly, try to think about your website's advertising budget. Attempt to set a daily spending limit, making it as low as you like (i.e. between £5-£10 per day). Having said that, if your business is not yet able to afford a budget for your site's advertising, it's usually best that for now you stick to SEO.

2. How competitive are the search engine results pages in your niche?

How competitively are your keywords ranking with the search engines? Google Keyword's research tool will be able to tell you - simply fill in your chosen keyword, and you can discover how many searches it receives a month.

3. What is the average cost-per-click (CPC) in your industry?

Have you considered how much your competitors are spending money on your keyword? Discovering how much others are shelling out to advertise your keyword will enable you to better decide whether or not you have the budget to contend with that.

If you are looking to enjoy greater online traffic for your business, asking yourself these 3 questions will assist you to better decide what will work best for your business. Nonetheless, you do not always have to select from the two; sometimes, combining both SEO and PPC can be hugely successful for boosting your sites traffic.

For more information on both PPC and SEO, see - search engine optimisation Essex .