Today online advertising has become one of the most basic mediums to promote a business and make your presence felt in the market. The need of the hour is to draw customers to your website by creating successful campaigns coupled with unique ideas and quality products and services.

Since the concept of online business has taken a front foot in the competitive market, it is important for businesses to realize that they need to dedicate their time and efforts more towards website advertising and marketing.

You may be in a quandary as to which technique to employ for advertising your website. First, before you employ any technique to promote your site, the golden rule is to clearly define goals that you wish to achieve. This will guide you in selecting techniques more appropriately and help you maximize your results within your budget.

Regarding the techniques, there are two options that have gained a lot of popularity in the recent times. These are:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization is the activity of improving the volume and quality of real time traffic to your site by optimizing your web pages. The SEO technique involves getting the topmost ranking without paying since your site is relevant to the search query entered by the user.

Pay Per Click (PPC)
This is an advertising model which requires an advertiser to pay when a user clicks on the ad. Advertisers select keywords that they want to run on and which are relevant to their business and then bid on these keywords. Bids may vary from keyword to keyword depending on how important and relevant the keyword is for the business. The advertiser’s ad shows under the sponsored links when a user types in a search query which matches the advertiser’s keyword.

Many times some commercial websites make use of both these options simultaneously to advertise their website. This is also a smart option as it not only leads to better website exposure and visibility but also ensures a better ranking and real time traffic to your site. However, gaining a better understanding of both these methods by analyzing their pros and cons can help you gauge which technique would be more suitable for you and is in align with your business objectives.

Search Engine Optimization Pros

More Credibility – By showing on top of search results you can enjoy more credibility because real time traffic and popularity is achieved by putting in lot of time and effort. The ranking is achieved purely on the basis of quality content and relevance.

Free Placement – Unlike PPC, you do not have to pay for the clicks you receive from organic search results. Getting on the top position is a matter of how well you optimize your site in relation to your competitors. It also saves you money in the long run once the process takes off well.

Improved Website Ranking –SEO also helps you attain a better site ranking with little effort. You can also hire SEO professionals like SEO Traffic Spider who can carry out the optimization task on your behalf which will reap you the benefits in the long run.

Qualified Traffic – You can expect a good amount of qualified real time traffic to your site as a result of increased recognition of search engines.

Long Lasting Results – The results you achieve from this method are more lasting and stable. Also, it gives you a much higher return on your investment. This is because usually users tend to click on organic search results when compared to PPC ads and this brings more traffic for less.

Search Engine Optimization Cons

Time Consuming – SEO is a complicated task and requires enormous amount of time and effort to implement it the right way. Sometimes it may also require you to completely modify the structure, layout, presentation, or content of your website to make it search engine friendly and also enhance user experience.

Results May Take Time – The true impact of SEO efforts cannot be known immediately. It will not give you instant results in terms of traffic and may take some time for your site to get the desired traffic. This time gap may affect your profitability till the time you start seeing true results.

Pay Per Click Pros

Instant results – This method brings you immediate results in terms of traffic, leads, or sales. In a matter of few hours or days you can begin to show on top of the sponsored links and enjoy the benefits of increased traffic flow.

Appropriate for Temporary Offers – This would be an ideal option for those who want to gain an entry into the online market for a short term or for those with temporary product/service offerings. This is because they can hope to gain better visibility and exposure by bidding higher on keywords rather than waiting for SEO to be implemented and return results.

Easy to Implement – PPC can be easily implemented without devoting much time and effort to it when compared to SEO. It also enables the advertiser to experiment with different keywords and landing pages to see what works best. You can also bid on a variety of keywords that you want to run on and which cannot be practically placed in your web pages when implementing SEO.

Pay Per Click Cons

Expensive – It is an expensive option as it eats up on your profit margins. Also, you end up paying even for clicks that may not convert into sales. Additionally, in case of click fraud, you may end up wasting a considerable amount of your budget on fraudulent clicks.

A thorough analysis of the pros and cons of both these approaches will help you decide which option would be more suitable for your advertising needs. However, the main highlight here is that PPC serves well as a short term strategy over SEO. It is a good option for those looking for quick results and a good ROI while waiting for their SEO initiative to ramp up. However, using the PPC model will leave you with thinner profit margins. From the long term perspective, search engine optimization will bring in higher profitability and make the most of your advertising dollars as it will extensively increase your margins in the long run.