PPC Search vs Organic Search

Pay-per-click (PPC) and search engine optimisation (SEO) are two very different avenues to source website traffic. Frustratingly, both approaches are viewed in very different lights by website owners and users, making it tough to properly understand their respective strengths. For years, businesses have debated whether one outweighs the other, with the prevailing beliefs being that organic traffic takes time to grow, whilst ads are often mistrusted by users.

At Nu Image, our experts optimise and promote businesses using both strategies and are firm believers that if done well, websites can benefit from a healthy mixture of both forms of marketing.

Advantages of PPC

• Provides a quicker turnaround for leads and online conversions compared to organic. This is because your ad can appear in the top 3 paid search results as soon as your campaign is made live.
• Places your business in the perfect position to capture users when they’re most in need of your services and products.
• Instant data makes it easy to clearly identify who the main target audience are, when they need you, and what device they typically use to search for you.
• The ability to assign monetary value to each lead based on the data that is returned.
• It provides insights into the quality and relevancy of your landing pages. Not only will this improve the chances of your ads appearing, but also helps you to improve the user experience on these landing pages in general.

Disadvantages of PPC

• The abundance of information and features in a PPC account can be overwhelming and difficult to understand without training.
• Whilst the return of data and results is quick, it takes time to tailor and optimise your campaigns to ensure they’re showing for the correct searches and not wasting your budget on unwanted searches.
• Users sometimes disregard PPC search results due to the ‘ad’ icon. Either they have enough understanding to know a business has paid to be there, or they don’t understand at all and think there’s a chance they may have to pay to click on it themselves.
• Accidental clicks or clicks from your competitors can waste your budget unnecessarily.

Advantages of Organic

• The top three positions in Google acquire 60% of clicks for that search. These top three positions are game changers and you’ll notice the traffic to your website and number of conversions shooting up.
• 70-80% of users scroll past the PPC ads to the organic search results.
• You’ll become a trusted and credible website for users and other businesses.
• It’s rewarding for marketers and business owners to see that their hard work has paid off and pushed the website to the top of Google.

Disadvantages of Organic

• It’s time-consuming. The length of time it takes to climb the rankings depends on the level of competition and the quality of your site; this can sometimes take 9-18 months.
• It’s a lifelong commitment. Once you’ve acquired the desired positions, the work can’t stop as competitors will continue to work towards acquiring those positions and will overtake you if maintenance and management of SEO isn’t ongoing.
• There are conflicting ideas on what works and what doesn’t when it comes to improving your organic search rankings.

Is it worth doing both?

Definitely! If you can afford a marketing budget that covers doing both well, then why not? On average, 60% of the clicks go to organic search while the remaining 40% goes to paid ads.

Two of our clients – sister companies Norwich Glass Company and City Locks Norwich – have chosen to do both as they provide a 24/7 emergency services. By optimising for both organic and PPC, they’re able to capture every user for search terms such as ’emergency boarding up’ and ’emergency locksmith near me’ throughout the day. With both, they’re able to cover all grounds and answer the user’s search query.

If you think PPC search or organic search is something you would like to work on for your business, contact one of our experts today on 01603 859007 to find out how they can help you.