Pay Per Click or SEO?

There are many advantages and disadvantages involved when
comparing PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising and SEO (Search Engine
Optimization). I will outline the advantages and disadvantages
below:

Advantages:

Return on Investment
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CPC is a very effective marketing tool. The efficiency of the
advertising is easy to track, therefore making the return on
investment (ROI) figures easy to determine. ROI is determined by
how many click-throughs resulted in a sale. Unlike print
advertising, where a company may spend thousands of dollars on
one ad that very few people may see, CPC allows business owners
to see exactly how many people clicked on the ad and what
percentage of those decided to purchase something. If the revenue
exceeds the costs involved with getting the customers to the
site, then the business is making money.

Auto-Bidding
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Many CPC engines are now offering "auto-bidding" to make things
even easier for their clients. If Company A puts in a maximum bid
of 10 cents, they have determined their limit per click. However,
at the moment they may only be paying five cents. If Company B
decides that they want to move to the number one spot and ups
their click-through rate to six cents, the auto-bidding feature
will up Company A’s bid to seven cents so that they will remain
in the first position. And they didn’t have to constantly monitor
the situation.

Attracting Visitors
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CPC is the most direct way to attract visitors to a site.
Choosing specific keywords means that you can specifically target
different types of consumers based on which keyword they type in.
By promoting more targeted keywords, you are much more likely to
attract someone who is interested in purchasing, rather than
promoting a broad search term in which individuals tend to type
when they are looking for information only

Increasing Branding
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50% of sales occur when a customer visits a Web site for the
first time. The other 50% generally occurs on subsequent visits.
If a customer sees a company listed at the top of the sponsored
links section, chances are that business will get the sale. But
even if the sale isn’t made right away, there is still the
advantage of branding — building awareness of the site for
future needs.

Having Full Control
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Advertisers choose the terms that describe their company; what
the cost of the term is worth; how much they are willing to pay
each day; and how long the campaign will last. All of this is
managed on their own time, not set by deadlines created by an
outside source.

Disadvantages:

Budget Limitations
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Because businesses only have so much to spend on their
campaigns, they need to set a budget for not only how much they
will pay for each click, but also what their daily maximum will
be. Because there is a set limit on the money that can be spent,
this also limits the amount of exposure the ad will have. Once
the daily maximum has been reached, the ad is no longer shown and
potential customers could be lost.

For those on limited budgets, this can mean that some of the
larger players will gain more exposure because of their financial
ability to pay more per click. But having the budget doesn’t
necessarily mean becoming number one. It takes patience,
determination, creativity, keyword selection and daily analysis
to be successful.

Just Looking…
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Just because someone clicks on a link, it doesn’t necessarily
mean that they will buy. Some people are just doing some research
and may click through to see what else is being

Click-Fraud
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It is said that anywhere between 10-15% of all clicks you
receive is click-fraud. This means that you only have 85% of your
clicks to try to convert a visitor into a customer. Click-fraud
will always be around as your advertisers click on your ads,
click-farms exists, and people continue to use the content
networks. If you want to limit the amount of click-fraud, avoid
the use of the content network as this traffic is where most of
the click-fraud is derived.

All in all, both methods can be very effective, however you are
at the mercy of Search Engine algorithms if you decide to use SEO
techniques. One day you could have a top-listing and then the
next day it could be removed from the search results entirely.

For Help, or personal coaching on creating your advertising
campaigns we highly suggest the two following resources:

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http://internettweet.com/go/beatad
http://internettweet.com/go/wau
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