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SEO vs. PPC - Why Both Matter

Jessica Yeh
Dec 14, 2017
2 min read

Contrary to what many believe, it’s not a matter of which practice is better, or picking one over the other. Realistically, a successful marketing strategy understands the strengths and weaknesses of both and utilizes them accordingly. Many people think the two interact and what happens with one can influence the other. Rookie mistake. PPC and SEO are not related. Utilizing PPC does not improve SEO and organic search results for your website. They both serve different purposes.

What is SEO?

SEO, or search engine optimization, is based on the structure of your website. This goes for the front end copy content, backend coding, and tagging procedures. SEO revolves around organic search results. Think of it as what you read on the webpage and how relevant it is to what you searched for to get there. Do they match? Did it yield the results you wanted? The goal of SEO is to make sure that people searching for a certain topic will see your site as relevant to their needs or interests.

Imagine walking into a grocery store to purchase apples. Instead of produce section, the aisle is labeled “plant things that sprout from nature.” Instead of calling them “apples,” they’re called “sphere-like red sweets.” It would take lot of trial and error just to find what you want. In this analogy, the grocery store (or website) has not set up its SEO properly.

What is PPC?

PPC, or pay per click, has to do with advertising and engagement. It ranges from display ads, to paid advertising, to targeting/retargeting across multiple platforms. The most common type of PPC is Google Adwords. PPC can be looked at like an advertising campaign. What’s the central message you want to get across? What are your selling points, competitive differentiators, and strengths of your products? These are things you want to highlight to increase your chances of conversion.

Let’s go back to our analogy. Say that this time, you’re on the way to the grocery store to buy apples. The competing grocery store from across the street has a giant flashing banner that draws your attention. The banner reads “Our apples are juicy, crisp, and on sale now. Come inside to get yours today.” As a result, you decide to go to the store across the street instead. The competitor is using a banner (PPC ad) to help drive traffic to their store (website) in hopes of you purchasing apples from them (conversion).

Strengths & Weaknesses