Phil Lauterjung

I mentioned in the last post, Integrated Lead Generation – Part 3: SEO Basics,  that Pay-Per-Click (PPC) is a cousin to SEO (Search Engine Optimization).  While that is true in one sense they are also very different from each other.  The first major difference is that with PPC you see results sooner than with SEO.  However, over the long term the results will be better with a good, solid SEO program.  Before we get into explaining more of the differences we need to clarify what a potential buyer would see when they start a search.

Let’s start off with a look at a typical search results page from Google:

Search Engine Results Page (SERP)

This page should look very familiar to most of you.  The key is to take note of the paid (PPC) links (top and right hand side) vs. the “organic” (SEO) links.  As you can see, PPC ads only get 25% of the clicks.  Those stats are pretty consistent from one search engine to another.  But, this does not mean that PPC ads are a bad strategy to employ for lead generation.

Here are a few reasons why PPC could be a good investment for your situation:

1. There is a direct correlation between the money you spend and the results.  Remember, you only pay when someone clicks on your ad – that’s where the very clever name came from, pay-per-click.  Some geeks are really smart that way.
2. There is almost instant gratification with PPC.  Once you have done your keyword research (which is equally important for both PPC and SEO) and defined your goals, you can set up your campaign in the morning and start getting click-throughs to your site that night in most cases.
3. It is easy to set up, test, and refine your campaign based on results from your analytics.  It is very measurable.
4. It can also give you access to the first page of the search results, provided you are willing to bid that high for your ad placement.

Does that mean you should use PPC instead of SEO?  Ahhh, there you go again looking for that “silver bullet” answer to all your lead generation woes.

The short answer is – it depends.  It depends on your situation and what your goals are.  PPC can give you faster results, but SEO (done correctly) will give you better results over the long term.  A strategy that has proven effective is to do both in combination.

You can start a few PPC campaigns while you are developing your SEO program, using PPC to test various keywords for effectiveness, and then adjusting your SEO based on that data.  Once the SEO program results get to an acceptable level you can dial back the PPC campaign or eliminate it.

Keep in mind that this is just an overview of this topic.  There is much more involved than what I’ve been able to incorporate in this post.  The purpose is to make you aware of what some of the possibilities are and then you can investigate it further.

I should mention that there is another critical element that you will need to make sure that both SEO and PPC work to their fullest extent.  So next time we will cover the topic of Landing Pages.

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