ppc explained
Categories search engine optimization

PPC Explained

PPC is not a strange world for webmasters concerned about digital marketing. Small businesses have deployed some form of PPC in their online advertising and campaigns. However, understanding how it works is crucial to successful and seamless marketing campaigns. 

Pay per click can be an interesting way to reach new customers and drive more traffic to your website, resulting in more sales, subscriptions, and an improved bottom line. At face value, pay per click advertising is more effective compared to organic SEO.

This complete guide will explore all you need to know about the PPC SEO definition and how it can benefit your brand. Read more to find out. 

What Does PPC Mean?

PPC (pay-per-click) is a digital marketing strategy where webmasters or SEM specialists pay for ads on search engines on Google. PPC meaning aims to rank on search engine results pages (SERPs) when people search for specific keywords. You only get to pay a fee when people click on the URL to your web pages.

It typically looks like this: 

Webmasters have used PPC to place these products when users click on ‘best hiking sneakers for men’. The major aim of PPC campaigns is to generate leads and increase sales and brand presence online.

When people need a product or service, search engines are the first place they go to find answers. Thus, brands must take advantage of PPC to plug their services in front of users with precision. 

According to pay per click statistics, Google reportedly makes $162 billion yearly from its ads platform.

What Is Pay-Per-Click Advertising?

Pay-per-click advertising is the umbrella name for the different forms of PPC available across other platforms. Have you ever searched for something on Google, only to see it again on Facebook or Instagram? That’s PPC at work. 

Some of the common formats of pay per click services include: 

  1. Search Advertising

These PPC digital marketing ads are the most common. You can find them at the top or right corners of search engines like Google and Bing. These ads are shown to users who search for specific keywords.

  1. Display Advertising

Display advertising is ads that appear on various websites targeted to attract a specific audience. These ads are usually in images, texts, banners, or short clips. These ads aren’t as effective as search advertising. But they are quite useful for building a brand presence online. 

  1. Social Media Advertising

Pay per click services also extend to social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, to your potential customers. Social media advertising has higher click-through rates directed to your web pages. 

You can use this form of marketing to generate more leads while promoting your online presence from your social media pages. PPC campaigns of this nature specifically target people of different demographics and interests. You can decide to send your audience to your landing pages, fill out online forms, or reveal content you want them to see.

But it has to be done right. You need to use the proper visuals and social media copy to attract your audience and get them to click on it. 

  1. Retargeting PPC Advertising

Retargeting PPC advertising uses browser cookies to reveal specific ads to users based on their online behavior. 

Let’s say you pore through an e-commerce website that sells fishing nets and fail to checkout. Sometime later, you could be on another website and see ads on fishing nets that will redirect you to the website you visited earlier. 

Retargeting or remarketing ads aim to entice you to complete a sale. It can also be incorporated into display advertising, email marketing, search ads, and social media campaigns. 

  1. Price Comparison Website Advertising

Price comparison website advertising gathers prices of similar goods from different webmasters. When users click on these links, it redirects them to the merchants, and they can buy their products and services instantly. 

Price comparison website advertising allows merchants to reach their customers and make more sales. 

  1. Affiliate Marketing

 Affiliate marketing is yet another form of pay per click management option where a performance-based payment model is utilized. In this setup, different products of different brands are reviewed with a link to buy those products. When users click on such links, the merchant pays a fee. 

Other ads include Google shopping ads, in-stream ads, Amazon PPC ads, and email marketing ads. 

These types of paid search campaigns give your website and brand more visibility. 

How Does Pay-Per-Click Work?

Pay per click advertising works differently compared to organic search. If you want people to locate your products and service when searching specific keywords, you need to take the following steps. 

  • Set your brand parameters. You need to decide who you want to target and other metrics such as leads, sales, traffic, subscriptions, and brand awareness. 
  • Decide the type of PPC campaign. You can choose to deploy one or more of the PPC mentioned above campaigns for your website.
  • Perform keyword research. You need to decide the keywords you want to promote your business when people search for it. The best way to choose keywords for PPC is to use keyword research tools. These tools include Ahrefs, Ubersuggest, SEMrush, Google Keyword Planner, SECockpit, Moz, KWFinder, and KeywordTool
  • Bid for the keywords. Many brands battle to rank higher in SERPs when they use PPC for specific keywords. Thus, you’d need to bid for the keywords. Some factors affect your PPC costs. These factors include the quality of your ads, landing pages, and keywords. 

After these steps have been established, your ads will appear on specific platforms. 

Benefits of PPC Advertising

There are several benefits of PPC advertising for digital marketing. These benefits include:

  • Quicker to set up. PPC is quicker to set up compared to organic searches. 
  • Receive clicks immediately. Once it meets all requirements and is live, your ads will begin to show up on those platforms, and you can start generating leads. 
  • It is measurable. You can easily track the conversions of leads with PPC advertising. You can monitor your ROI for specific keywords and ad groups. With this insight, you can redefine your digital marketing strategy. 
  • Flexibility. There are several PPC campaigns available to choose from. All you need to do is select the suitable ones for your overall brand objectives. 
  • More control. PPC advertising puts you in the driver’s seat, as you control which ads to run and how much to spend. 

These benefits of PPC marketing makes it suitable for immediate results. 

PPC vs SEO

It is totally natural to compare the differences between PPC and SEO campaigns. We use a tabular format to explore them below.

PPC CampaignsSEO Campaign
During SERPs, PPC ads appear at the top of the page.SEO and organic search appear in the middle of the page.
Easier to set up.Takes some time to set up
You can start receiving clicks and leads almost immediatelyTakes some time to start receiving and generating leads.
It is not freeIt is free and organic
Use Google Ads to rank higher in SERPsMake use of on-page SEO optimization
PPC ends when the budget has been exhausted.It is long lasting.

PPC and SEO campaigns aren’t competing against each other. Implementing any of them lies on your brand objectives and budget. 

ppc vs seo

Best Way to Choose Keywords for PPC

For PPC campaigns to be effective, you must choose the right keywords to explore. Try out the following steps. 

  • Explore your search terms as discussed in previous sections
  • Consider the relevance of your keywords
  • Choose long-tail keywords
  • Aim for keywords with low competition. 
  • Use keyword research tools to aid you in your PPC digital marketing.

These are foolproof ways to choose keywords for your pay per click services. 

What Is the Best PPC Platform?

There are several PPC platforms available for your campaigns. However, not all of them are effective. Below are the best and most efficient PPC platforms: 

You can run your ads on any of these platforms and have a successful campaign.

How to Run a Successful PPC Campaign

For your PPC campaigns to succeed, you need to deploy the following steps. 

  • Optimize your website by writing clear copies, engaging headlines, excellent web design, call-to-action, and seamless checkout. 
  • Choose a PPC campaign. 
  • Set a budget for the campaign. 
  • Choose your keywords.
  • Write an interesting ad. 
  • Test and monitor your web analytics for performance. 

PPC isn’t difficult as people make it out to be. You need to understand how it works from what we’ve explored so far.

Pay-Per-Click Services

There are several marketing brands involved in Pay per click services. You can search and hire a specialist to handle your PPC campaigns. You can also ask your friends to recommend one to work with. 

Conclusion

PPC is an excellent digital marketing campaign if you know just what to do. We believe if you follow these simple strategies, you can set up a PPC campaign and start receiving great results. 

organic-keywords-vs-ppc
Categories search engine optimization

Organic Keywords vs PPC

Digital marketing comes in different folds. And as businesses and individuals battle to rank better on search engine result pages (SERPs), you must consider your options carefully. New businesses struggle with SERPs and knowing which SEO campaign to deploy is essential.

Sometimes, you might ask yourself, “organic keywords vs paid keywords: which is better?” There’s no straightforward answer to that. The solution is subjected to your specific budget, objectives, and knowledge of the marketplace. 

As distinct as they appear, organic search vs paid search are vital aspects of digital marketing and even web design. This article will explore their differences and benefits in detail and how to integrate them for your web analytics

What Does Organic Keywords Mean?

Organic keywords are keywords used to pull visitors to your website with the simple aid of search engine optimization (SEO). They are a sharp contrast to pay-per-click (PPC) keywords where you’d have to deploy paid search campaigns to rank on SERPs. 

To rank higher on organic searches, you need to optimize your entire web page for organic keywords. Why? These keywords are specifically what people are searching for, and if Google finds your web pages valuable, it will rank them above others on SERPs. According to research, Google processes more than 3.5 billion searches daily. 

Thus, if there’s no on-page keyword optimization on your web pages, it will be difficult ranking for those pages when people search them. You need to understand the nitty-gritty of organic keyword research to rank better during organic searches.

How To Do Organic Keywords Research

Organic keyword research is really easy to implement if you know what to do. There are different steps to take in carrying out this research. They include: 

  1. Make a List of Topics Related to Your Business

The first step towards ranking your web pages on SERPs based on organic search is to curate a list of topics related to your business or website. 

You can create up to 10 topic lists relevant to your website. This will make the foundation for more specific organic keywords added to your arsenal. You need to think about the topics people might search for that lead them to your website and jot them down. 

  1. Fill Those Topics With Keywords

Now that you’ve got a handful of topics to infuse into your web pages, you need to identify some keywords that will fit into those topics. It could include keyword phrases that you think your targeted audience will be searching for. 

For instance, if a topic you’d like to build on is ‘Organic SEO for Small Businesses,’ related keywords for that topic will include: 

  • What is Organic SEO
  • Benefits of Organic SEO
  • Digital marketing
  • Organic SEO tools

That’s not to say these are only the keywords you will use. It only helps to give you a structure for your on-page optimization. In recent times, Google has been encrypting keywords. So, you might consider some of the keywords your website is already ranking for. 

You can check it on Google Analytics or HubSpot’s Traffic Analytics Tool and note the keywords are redirecting people to your web pages.

  1. Consider User Intent

The next step in how to increase organic keywords is to identify user intent when searching these keywords in their browser. When people search for content online, they want to see results – regardless of the search keywords used. 

Thus, Google will curate content that addresses their query rather than feeds them with websites loaded with those keywords. The reason is that keywords can have several meanings on a surface level. 

One of the best ways to establish user intent is to enter the intended keywords on google and see the kind of results that show up. Ensure that the results google is showing are related to your website content before you commit to it. 

  1. Take a Look at Related Search Items

Another way you can be creative in generating organic keywords is by looking at the related searches when you search content on google. 

Take a look at the ‘People also ask’ and ‘Related searches’ sections for this ‘what is cryptocurrency?’

Take advantage of these other keywords and incorporate more topics into your website.

  1. Take Advantage of Keyword Research Tools

You can also build your research by utilizing an organic keyword research tool. These SEO tools can provide more ideal keywords that you can use along with the generated keywords for your web pages.

Here is a typical example of an organic keyword checker on ‘horseback riding’.

Some of the organic keyword research tools include: 

These tools will help you with supplementary keywords you can incorporate into your web pages and domain. You can use SEMrush Organic Research Tool to get insights on the keywords your competitors are ranking for. 

What is PPC?

PPC (pay-per-click) is a digital marketing process where webmasters run ads on Google Ads and pay a fee when their ads are clicked. Webmasters use PPC marketing to rank their websites on SERP and drive traffic, leads, and sales from their target audience.

PPC can help place your website before your prospective audience – which organic searches do not permit.

Paid Marketing

Paid marketing is a form of PPC, where brands target the audience based on their interests and previous interactions. Paid marketing goes beyond placing brands on to the top of SERPs. It extends to social media platforms and sponsored guest posts. 

Have you ever visited Facebook or Instagram to find ads for products you were searching for? That’s paid marketing at work. The catch is you only pay when someone clicks on those ads. So, if you set a maximum budget of $200, the ad will continue to run until it has been exhausted.

Difference Between Organic Search And Paid Search

At this point, you’d want to know the difference between organic search and paid search before deciding on which strategy to deploy. Both are great for SEO marketing, but it’s essential to know the difference. Below is the difference between PPC vs SEO.

  • Intent. Organic search uses keywords to attract traffic to your website with the aid of search engine optimization (SEO). On the other hand, paid search uses Google Ads to rank your website for specific keywords on SERPs. 
  • Position. Organic search usually shows up in the middle of the SERPs, while paid search shows up at the top of the search results pages. 
  • Timeframe. Organic search takes some time to work, as you’d work on on-page optimization. With paid search, you can start receiving clicks almost immediately.
  • Tracking ROI. With Paid search, you can generate leads as soon as possible. It takes a while to start generating leads from organic searches. 
  • Relevance. Organic search is lasting with regular tweaks. Paid search ends as soon as the money budgeted is exhausted. 

Organic vs Paid Search

We will use a tabular form to explore organic marketing vs paid marketing.

Organic SearchPaid Search
Appears in the middle of SERPsAppears at the top of SERPs
Gets moderate clicksGets more clicks
Make use of on-page optimization to rank in SERPsMake use of Google Ads
Take a long time to rank higher on SERPsRanking is based on the amount budget for each campaign
It is long lastingIt will stop as soon as the budget for PPC ends.
It is freeIt is paid for.
Slower to executeFaster to execute

Benefits of Organic Search

There are several benefits to organic search. Some of them include: 

  • Cost. Organic search costs are free to implement if you want to do it yourself. Most webmasters would resort to hiring an SEO specialist to help with their digital marketing. 
  • Credibility. Organic search boosts your brand credibility as you continue to rank higher on SERPs. 
  • Improve your online presence. Organic search can help improve your online presence – as more people are directed to your web pages. 
  • Sustainable. Organic search is more sustainable than PPC. You need to improve your keyword optimization for your site to appear higher on SERPs. 
  • Regular visitors. You amass regular and engaged website visitors with organic search. 
  • Brand building. Organic search is an excellent marketing strategy to build and expand your brand. 

Benefits of Paid Search 

Paid search also has its own benefits. They include:

  • Faster Execution. Paid search is more immediate to execute compared to organic searches.
  • More flexibility. Paid search comes with more flexibility. You can tweak your ad campaign for the ad copy, keywords, landing page, and ad extensions. 
  • Cost-effective. You only get to pay when someone clicks on the ad on SERPs with paid search. 
  • Measurable. With the web analytics on Google Ads, you can measure each campaign’s success. 

Organic Search vs Paid Search: Which Is Better?

Between organic marketing vs paid marketing, there is no one better. You can choose anyone to deploy based on your interests, needs, and objectives. 

For sustainability, you should opt for an organic search. However, for instant results, you should totally go for paid search. You can use paid marketing and search knowledge to work towards your on-page optimization for organic search. 

So, both of them are relevant. 

Conclusion

Organic and paid searches are an essential aspect of digital marketing. Thankfully, you know everything about them and how to implement them in your marketing campaign.