By Neil Patel

“Which is better, SEO vs PPC?”

If there’s one question I get asked more than any other, this is it.

Everyone wants to know who wins in the battle and where they should spend their marketing dollars. And everyone hates when I tell them there isn’t an easy answer.

Like everything else, it depends.

Neither SEO nor PPC is fundamentally better than the other. As you’ll discover in this article, each tactic has its own set of advantages and disadvantages.

What is almost always true is that SEO and PPC work better together. Don’t believe me? I’ll prove it. In this article, I will:

• Guide you through the positives and negatives of both digital marketing strategies
• Show how each of them supports your business
• Show you how PPC and SEO work together

Ready? Then let’s look at my favorite digital marketing strategy first.

How SEO Supports Your Business

If you need a search engine optimization primer, read my guide to SEO before going any further. If you don’t, you should already have a pretty solid understanding of how ranking on a search engine’s result pages can generate awesome traffic that grows your business.

Almost any business can benefit from the free traffic that search engines like Google send their way, but that’s not to say SEO should definitely be the be-all-end-all when it comes to marketing strategies. As you’ll read below, while there are plenty of benefits of SEO, there are also a couple of drawbacks to be aware of.

Pros of SEO

It’s cost-effective. SEO can be one of the cheapest forms of marketing and an incredibly cost-effective way of growing your brand. You don’t have to pay to receive organic traffic, and you can do much of the work yourself. But even using an SEO agency is much more cost-effective than PPC.

It delivers long-term results. If you do SEO correctly, your efforts can pay dividends for years to come. Not only will you avoid Google penalties, but SEO also has a habit of compounding. The top pages get more backlinks by virtue of being the top-ranked pages on Google. In turn, that makes them even more likely to continue ranking high in the future.

It targets every part of your funnel. Consumers are using Google at every stage of the buyer’s journey. That makes SEO one of the few digital marketing strategies to target every part of the sales funnel. Use SEO to engage customers early in their journey, and you should be able to significantly decrease acquisition costs.

Great brand awareness and trust. The more you appear on Google, the more consumers will trust your brand. And unlike PPC, you don’t have to spend a fortune to dominate the search results. With a focus on content marketing, you can become the go-to resource for your industry, appearing for every relevant …read more

Source:: Kiss Metrics Blog