V8 Digital

What are PPC and SEO, and when should I use them?

PPC is paid advertising, ads purchased on a variety of platforms, (Google AdWords, Instagram&Facebook, Twitter and Pintrest) that appear in either a search or in the feed of people on social media platforms as advertisements.

SEO, is search engine optimisation, it is an approach to our website design services, that strives to gain you a prominent position in regular google searches, also known as organic searches.

There are many misapprehensions about the functions and methods behind paid advertising (PPC) and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) which we will try to clear up here.

The analogy that we use to explain is that paid advertising, when done well – works like sonar on a fishing vessel, identifying where the fish (your potential clients are) and enabling you to bring them into you to land a catch. The skill is in getting the sonar beam focussed well enough so you’re not wasting your efforts on fishing in waters where you’re never going to catch anything.

SEO on the other hand, is more subtle, and it acts more like bait on a fishing rod, by making your website more attractive to potential customers, and also to google’s algorithms, your website will rank higher, and over time on average you will get more enquiries. The better quality bait you use, the better the results.

Sonar (PPC) is an expensive addition to your fishing vessel, but it is highly focussed and delivers relatively rapid results. It requires significant short term investment. The drawback of PPC, is that it stops working the minute you stop using it. Without the sonar, you are back to drifting along hoping that you are in a place with fish. Find out more about our digital marketing services in London.

Organic traffic (SEO) vs. paid search advertising (PPC).

Position in Search Results

SEO is organic in the sense that the search results appear in the place that most people look to when they’re trying to find something, where’s ads appear at the top (and bottom) of the page, whilst the organic searches appear in the middle of the page between any paid.

Where exactly your ad will appear depends on a number of factors (i.e. the keywords you are targeting, keywords in your ad copy, keywords in your landing page, and many more) but it’s either on top or below the organic results.