Search Engine Optimization vs. Pay Per Click = Buying vs. Renting

One of the best analogies to compare SEO versus PPC advertising is to consider the decision of buying versus renting a home.  If someone were to ask you if it is better to buy or rent a home, what would you tell them?  Hopefully you would tell them that it depends, right?  What does it depend upon?  Well, the price of course!  In the following exercise, it is very important to understand how to compare the prices of each option.

While many people would say that it is always better to buy than rent if you can, this is not always the case.  For example, lets say you have the option of buying a 3 bedroom, 2 bath house in a nice neighborhood for $250,000.  Is this a good deal?  Maybe its a great deal, but what if I told you I would rent it to you for only $100/month?  How can you go wrong?  You can see where even though we were taught it is always better to buy, there are situations where renting is better if it is cheap enough.  The biggest caveat to renting is the risk of the price going up in the future.

Comparing PPC versus SEO is a very similar exercise.  PPC advertising and SEO optimization both get you essentially the same thing, the use of valuable internet real estate.  The higher up you are on the pages you desire, the more valuable the turf!  When evaluating between these two core internet marketing strategies you need to take into account the cost of each.  This is going to depend on a number of important factors, including the keyword phrases you are targeting, the demographics you are targeting, and especially your geo-targeting.  Some industries like plastic surgery, weight loss, and internet marketing are extremely competitive, while others like awnings, aluminum products, and related are often not as difficult or expensive.  Nationwide campaigns are often more competitive than local ones, though not always.  Location plays a major factor.

The math to determine the better strategy between SEO and PPC is quite simple.  Similar to the cost of living in a home, either rent or mortgage payments are made monthly for the right to live in the home.  Lets break down the cost of PPC vs SEO in the same manner.  We need to determine the number of times your PPC ad is clicked per month, the cost per click, and the total monthly cost.  We then need to compare this number with the cost of getting your website ranked organically, or even receiving traffic from web 2.0 marketing techniques, to determine a fair comparison.  You can see the comparison is a little more complicated than saying PPC is better or SEO is always the best.

Any reputable internet marketing company should be able to provide some guidance for you in this SEO vs. PPC comparison exercise.  A good way to find one is to make sure you include the term “best” in your search query.  For example, you may want to try a search along the lines of “Best Internet Marketing Company” or something similar including the term “Best”.

Beating AdWords is pretty easy as long as you know how – its all about doing your homework and not taking for granted that you know it all before you begin.

If you do think you know it all already then you are in for trouble, but then perhaps that goes without saying. No doubt you have heard stories before about people trying pay per click and losing a lot of money? I know I have and that’s the reason why I chose not even to try to engage the services of Google AdWords or Yahoo! Pay Per Click Advertising before. Instead, I sought pay per click help!

I used to gamble on horses so I know how it feels to lose a lot of money within just minutes of deciding to take the gamble in the first place. Pay per click and beating AdWords is not quite in the same league in “gambling” terms as horse racing or betting is, but for some people it equates to this, which is understandable – if you don’t know how to do it properly in the first place.

If you know how then the “gamble” completely disappears and in time you are much more likely to be beating AdWords at your leisure!

Even if you have some experience of using pay per click advertising did you actually make profits? If you did were you happy with your optimization procedures and did you improve upon your early successes? Did you utilize split testing to find out if you could increase your profits?

I have to guess the answer to at least one of these questions is “no” otherwise why else would you be reading about beating AdWords and seeking pay per click help with your own campaigns?

Okay, so we have established that you have to make some changes and improvements if you have already some experience with PPC, or that you have yet to begin and are keen to get your first campaign underway.

It’s my experience in life that the best way to gain success is to learn from someone who has been there and done it and is now successful at it, and then to follow their methods closely. Become an apprentice, if you will.

But, how to find that person?

How to find that expert who has been through the lows to reach the highs and now is constantly making very good profits from their pay per click campaigns? How to find the so-called Guru who is willing to show you the ropes, to give you pay per click help, to take you “by the hand” and guide you to early profits without you getting hit in the pocket along the way?

The best way to find the answer to this question is to read reviews of products written by well known and trusted pay per click experts. There are a number of experts who have written pay per click help guides and made them available to the market and its really up to you to find what guide is best for you and then follow that guide closely.

Never before in history was it possible to spend just a few bucks, write a couple of words & get instant access to millions of people who are actively searching for you. That is exactly what Google AdWords does. It is an awesome concept which you can take advantage of.

However, pay per click advertising is like war, especially with competitors jumping on literally every single minute! In order to survive & profit, you must be able to do the following:

• build a pay per click marketing campaign from scratch
• find keywords that get people to click on your ads
• pay the lowest bid prices on your keywords
• prevent click fraud & other scams
• convert clicks into customers

If there was 1 single book that I have to recommend to you, this is it…

Ultimate Guide To Google AdWords by Perry Marshall & Bryan Todd

This is a list of what you will learn:

• how to force people to choose your site
• how to build your autopilot marketing machine
• how to build your AdWords campaign the right way
• how to triple your clicks without being a genius
• how to triple your traffic with AdSense & image ads
• how to do local ads
• how to slash your bid prices
• the winning method that the marketers stole
• converting website visitors into paying clients
• using Google conversion tracking system
• beating your competition when it is most brutal
• persuasion ad copy as your ultimate silver bullet
• untapped ad copy writing ideas you can use right now
• grinding down your competition
• creating wealth with your client list
• how to rank well on the organic search results
• tools by Google for smarter AdWords results

Summary

This is an ever-changing game, keep reading, keep learning, keep getting better, keep yourself ahead of competition.