Businesses today usually operate both online and in specific locations. Whether or not a company has a store that customers can visit in-person, it must have a website. To draw customers to their websites, companies must invest in two of the main types of search engine marketing: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC).

SEO

When a person uses a search engine such as Google, he or she types in a few keywords and then hits “search.” The search engine generates a list of websites based on which ones have the greatest relevance to the keywords. People are most likely to click on the websites that are on the first page of results, so companies should always try to increase their rankings. SEO involves moving a company’s website higher in the list of search engine results through carefully crafting content around keywords.

SEO is crucial to a company’s success. Businesses must pay someone to create keyword-based content, and they must invest in an expert who knows how to create a good SEO strategy. While these processes require money and labor, no charge is associated with the number of people who read the content. As a result, the better the SEO strategy, the more cost-effective it will be.

PPC

PPC’s name comes from the fact that businesses must pay search engines a fee based on how many times potential clients click on a link. This type of search engine marketing results in advertisements that are usually placed either at the top or bottom of a search engine results page. The content between these two sections is driven by SEO. Businesses pay search engine companies for these advertisement links based on the link’s location and how many people use the link to visit the company’s website.

PPC is more likely to lead to new customers than SEO, particularly if a company is new or small, as PPC content is usually more visible. Additionally, people often look at the link and company information of a PPC ad without clicking on it, so the company receives some free advertisement. However, PPC is also more expensive, since businesses must pay for the content itself and the number of times clients use the link.

While PPC and SEO each have benefits and drawbacks, companies need to use both in order to have the best search engine marketing strategy possible. A carefully planned combination of these two tools should increase a company’s sales and profit.