SEO vs PPC

Whether you’re B2B or B2C, your company needs the right tools, like CRMs, to track the ROI of your SEO, PPC, and other strategies using your CTR, customer LTV and other KPIs. Acronyms for days 🤓 Sure, it’s a bit obnoxious, but not untrue.

As a premier web design agency in Kansas City, Lifted Logic has to be fluent in the digital marketing alphabet. And also able to use it to build strategic marketing plans for businesses of all shapes, sizes, and industries. 

We’re tackling two of the heavy hitters: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay Per Click (PPC) to demonstrate the similarities and differences between the strategies and how they work together to level-up your digital marketing. 

Table of Contents

SEO vs. PPC: Maybe you know a lot about one of these two strategies, a little about both, or nothing about either. In this article, we’ll help you speak the language of digital marketing more fluently, and understand how these two strategies work well on their own, but even better together.

To find the information you need faster, skip the scroll and use the links below to get straight to what you need.

• J, K, L-M-N-SEO
• When to use SEO
• AI & SEO
• A, B, PPC
• Best Practices for Building a PPC Ad
• When to use PPC
• SEO vs. PPC: The Similarities
• SEO vs. PPC: The Differences
• SEO vs. PPC: Which One Do I Need?
• SEO 🤝PPC
• Ask for Help or DIY?
• Frequently Asked Questions

J, K, L-M-N-SEO

To keep it simple, search engine optimization is a way to increase your web traffic through organic search results. Based on that definition, there is one clear goal: increasing web traffic. 

But the key is it needs to be a balance between quality and quantity. You could attract all the users in the world, but if they aren’t the users you need, then it’s a waste.

Say you’re opening a vegan bakery and want to attract new customers. If we’re all being honest, we know there are plenty of people with a sweet tooth who would not be interested in an eggless cupcake. So if your SEO plan is focused solely on quantity of users, you might be successful in gaining lots of traffic, but that traffic will inevitably include the vegan-haters who bounce immediately upon arrival. That is low quality traffic you want to avoid.

The point of a well-planned SEO strategy is to not only increase traffic, but to increase the quality of your traffic. You want to effectively target people who are interested in your products or services, and exclude people who are not—because this is what converts traffic to leads and leads to sales. 

This is just the tip of the iceberg. To dive in deep, use our ultimate guide to search engine optimization.

When to Use SEO

Your website is your brand’s only sales representative that works 24 hours a day. If you have an online presence designed to attract customers and drive business (which you should), you need SEO that is written to convert users into customers.

Your SEO-powered website also acts as the strong foundation for the rest of your digital marketing. Every avenue you pursue, from email campaigns to publishing articles, should be driving traffic back to a website that is equipped with relevant content.

How to Measure Success With SEO

Yes, you can measure SEO (search engine optimization) success using the following key performance indicators (KPIs ).

✨ Rank ✨

The first way to measure the success of your SEO efforts is rank. When people search for the places, services, topics, or industries you optimized for, where do you fall on the lineup? As an agency who works with clients of all shapes and sizes, this is the clearest way to demonstrate the effectiveness of your SEO work.

✨Traffic ✨

Another metric of success is traffic. The best way to track traffic and other user behaviors on your website is Google Analytics. Properly tracking site data like traffic allows you not only to provide insight on the effectiveness of your website, but gather comparative data to measure changes in success over time.

✨ Quality of Users ✨

Coming full circle, good SEO should improve your quality of users. More than just the number of people visiting your site, the number of conversions should proportionally increase. Quality users should spend more time, be more interactive, and ultimately take more action on your website.

✨ Domain Authority ✨

Strong, long-term SEO should also improve your website’s domain authority. Your domain authority is a value you can check through a program called Moz. It’s an estimated performance ranking based on the quality of your site and its content.

The Pillars of SEO

Leveraging SEO can enhance your website’s credibility and establish it as an authority in its field. You just have to learn how to use it correctly and to the user’s advantage.

On-Page Content

As we stated before, you should have relevant content on your website. It should be informative and engaging, enticing visitors to stay longer and explore more. This signals to search engines that your site is a valuable resource.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO is the backbone This foundation allows for the effective implementation of on-page and off-page strategies, ultimately driving visibility and traffic, ensuring search engines can easily crawl and index your site. This includes site speed, mobile-friendliness, and structured data. All of these factors directly impact your website’s visibility and user experience.

Off-Page

Signals that can build the authority and trustworthiness of your website include backlinks (both from your own site and from reputable sources), social media mentions, and brand visibility. Together, these three pillars form a robust SEO strategy that can significantly boost your online presence.

Local SEO

If you have a storefront or any physical presence, local SEO can help attract customers in your area by targeting relevant local searches. This ensures that your business reaches the right audience at the right time.

For example, if you run a medical spa in Kansas City offering Botox, a potential client in your city might search “Botox in Kansas City”. Investing in local SEO helps your business appear higher in search results based on proximity, relevance, and credibility. This makes it easier for nearby customers to find and choose you.

AI & SEO

AI is changing how we approach SEO. Learning how to use that to your business’s advantage can unlock unprecedented efficiency in content creation and audience targeting.

When you Google something, like SEO vs. PPC for example, instead of a list of articles with relevant information, AI now provides direct answers synthesized from multiple sources. This shift means that not only do we need content that directly answers user questions—we also need content that AI can easily find and understand. Think of it as optimizing for both the search engine and the intelligent assistant.

The goal for SEO is to become the source that AI uses for that citation, which pushes your website’s content to the top of a search engine results page (SERP).

Technical SEO leans heavily into the AI algorithm. If Gemini and other AI tools have difficulty processing your content, it will eliminate your chances of appearing in the overview. So, if your site is sluggish, confusing to navigate, or contains duplicate or outdated information, you can say goodbye to your SERP ranking.

A, B, PPC

Pay per click, sometimes referred to as cost per click (CPC), refers to any digital paid advertising campaign that charges fees per click. 

This model is especially popular through Google’s advertising platform: AdWords, although it’s used by many social media platforms as well.

Say you’re advertising for golf clubs in Kansas. Whenever someone in Kansas searches “golf clubs,” you want to be the first advertisement on the results page. If the user clicks on your ad, Google will charge you the amount that they bid for you to show up on the results page.

Without getting too in the weeds 🌱 every time there is a search, behind the scenes is a fully automated ad auction taking place. Search engines use the auction to determine the validity and relevance of the ads that rank on their results pages.

There are a number of best practices (like SKAGs, another acronym 🤓) to ensure that Google deems your ads valid and relevant enough to show up on the first page of results for the lowest possible bid, but the show doesn’t stop there. Step #2 is getting the user to convert after they click.

Best Practices for Building a PPC Ad

You want your ad to be placed above competitors in marketing platforms like:

• Google Ads
• Meta Ads (Facebook and Instagram)
• LinkedIn Ads
• Microsoft Ads

In order to create high-ranking ads, you need to create high-quality ads that are relevant to your target audience and align closely with their search intent. User intent is a key consideration in SEO vs. PPC. In PPC, it directly influences ad relevance, visibility, and the overall performance of your ads.

Keywords and Ad Relevance

Keywords are the words and phrases that you type into search engines. We use keywords for both SEO and PPC to help us understand what people are searching for and what direction to take our content in.

For example, if someone searches for a garage door repairman in Kansas City, search engines will show results with keywords like “garage door repair” or “emergency garage door service.”

This means that using the right keywords can promise you more views, increased click-throughs, and higher traffic and conversions.

Clear Messaging

Using the right keywords can only get you so far. You need to make sure that your ad speaks to what the searcher wants at the moment. Every word counts, and having a structured ad that grabs the user’s attention will help you turn views into conversions. A high-quality PPC Ad should include the following:

• Headline: Keep this message under 30 characters, include the keywords and match the user’s intent. This is the main blue text that appears on your ads.
• Visuals: Imagery can capture the attention of the user when used correctly. In fact, our brains process images approximately 60,000 times faster than text. In addition to photos, logos are also useful for brand consistency, color schemes affect how users perceive your ads, even ad copy placement affects user engagement.
• Messaging: Now that you’ve captured the reader’s attention, you have 90 characters to compel them to click on your ad.
• Call to Action: This is where you tell your user which steps to take next. For example, for this article, we would say “learn more about SEO vs. PPC here.” This compels the reader to click on the link, and end up on the landing page—another important factor for PPC.

Landing Pages

After strong visuals, interesting messaging, and relevant keywords lead to an ad click, the user arrives at their final destination: the landing page. This is a standalone web page that converts visitors into leads or customers.

When to Use PPC

Some like to think of SEO vs. PPC as simply long-term vs. short-term, but this is only a piece of pie. While PPC can have a much quicker results turnaround than SEO, it’s not immediate. 

There is always an element of strategy and planning ahead, even with pay per click 🤯 

PPC can be an effective means to:

• Break into a new market
• Expand into a different geographic area
• Promote a new service
• Increase brand awareness
• Target a more niche audience
• Re-market to your website users
• And more

How to measure success with PPC

The primary metrics for measuring PPC campaign performance are impressions, clicks, conversions, and cost. Within the AdWords program, you can configure success data using these four main measurements. 

Example: Click Through Rate (CTR) is impressions over clicks presented as a percentage.

As a digital agency focused on identifying bottlenecks, some of our best practices when it comes to PPC are centered around organizing data. Customizing your dashboard within the AdWords program to reflect the user pipeline can help you identify your most prominent “drop off” points.

So what defines success? As they say, it’s all relative. Well, not really, but relative to one thing in particular. 

The cornerstone of your campaign data is your average cost per conversion. It can help you determine your budget needs, optimize your spend, and more. Depending on the industry, size, service, audience, and more, a successful cost per conversion is relative to the lifetime value of a single client.

SEO vs. PPC: the similarities

When you break down the similarities between SEO vs. PPC, it’s all about ensuring that you’re there when your customers are searching. Two of the tactics they share are: 

1. Matching search intent
2. Serving appropriate content

Choosing the right keywords to optimize for with SEO, as well as the right keywords to buy for with PPC, involves matching the search intent as much as the search subject.

Example time. Searching “web design” and searching “web designer” might not seem too dissimilar, but what can just the tense tell us about the intent? Someone searching web design might be looking for a definition, training course, tools, or examples. Someone searching “web designer” is looking for a type of person: professionals or job listings.

Matching the intent of your target audience from the initial search could prevent you from bidding on clicks you don’t want or generating low quality organic traffic.

In the same effort, you want to serve your audience the most relevant content first. A good quality landing page matches search intent beyond the search results page and gives the user a clear next step. 

SEO vs. PPC, the differences

The biggest difference when talking SEO vs. PPC is the timeline. While PPC results are not always immediate, the learning period for a Google Ads campaign is only about 7 to 10 days, and a mature campaign is 2 to 3 months old. It could take Google up to 6 weeks to fully index SEO content on a website and longer to attribute domain authority.

Another major difference has to do with cost. The cost of SEO work can vary widely depending on the professional you trust, the amount of time spent, and the amount of content created. Costs associated with PPC are much more transactional and budgets for campaigns can be adjusted over time.

In short, SEO is a long-term investment.

SEO vs. PPC, which one do I need?

In short, probably both. There is a time and place for both marketing mediums, so it’s less of a question of SEO vs. PPC and more of SEO 🤝 PPC. Game recognize game. 

Think of your website like your favorite concert. SEO is the headliner. The breadwinner. What the people want. PPC is like the opening act. They’re great—you couldn’t have attracted as many people without them—but their true task is to warm up the crowd. PPC is the short-term solution to the long-term problem that strong SEO eliminates. 

As much as we love a good analogy, this is mostly applicable to search ads. Display and video ads can easily have a more permanent place in your marketing plan and serve their own unique purpose, such as:

• Ongoing Brand Awareness
• Recruitment
• Ecommerce Sales

More about how the best digital marketing strategies include both PPC and SEO →

But if you’re not quite ready to commit to both yet, we have your back.

When You Need SEO More

SEO is the long game, and if you’re patient and trusting, you can really benefit from it in these instances:

• Long-term brand visibility and authority: It takes a while to get to the top of a search page. But once you’re there, you receive a steady stream of traffic that can last for months or even years.
• Content-driven websites: If your website has a lot of content, like long-form blogs, then you can integrate SEO practices into your site to boost your ranking higher.
• Limited budget, but plenty of time: In the debate of SEO vs. PPC, we like to say that PPC costs money, but SEO costs time. If you have a limited budget, we suggest investing it in SEO for a higher organic ranking. This requires a bit more homework from you, as you have to find the right keywords and write high-quality content based on user intent.

When You Need PPC More

PPC allows you to launch your product or campaign immediately and instantly receive a flow of targeted visitors to your website. If you’re considering SEO vs. PPC, we might recommend PPC for the following reasons:

• New product launches or promotions: When you want instant visibility, immediate traffic, and measurable results right away.
• Campaigns or events: Limited-time offers, sales, and seasonal promotions require immediate visibility, which SEO can’t deliver on.
• High-competition keywords: Give yourself immediate exposure with high-ranking keywords.

SEO 🤝PPC

Forget about SEO vs. PPC, in the marketing alphabet, these two acronyms go well together to boost your business on SERPs.

Data Sharing

Why compete when you can join forces? PPC offers you insights into data from both PPC and SEO results. Because PPC works almost immediately, you get access to information on your target audience’s behavior, demographics, and keyword searches. When a keyword converts well, it shows significant user intent, which we can leverage in SEO content to improve organic traffic capture.SEO, on the other hand, gives us long-term insight into what kind of content and pages people engage with organically. Which you can then use to write better ads and target smarter with PPC.

Keyword Testing

When you want to test the waters with a new service or market. PPC provides a quick way to gauge interest and gather data before committing to a more extensive SEO strategy. Its flexibility allows for rapid adjustments based on performance, making it ideal for agile marketing efforts.

Brand Visibility

The goal of SEO and PPC is to gain brand visibility and recognition. In this instance, thinking of these strategies as SEO vs. PPC limits you on SERPs. However, when considering them as complementary forces, they amplify your presence across the digital landscape. The more recognition your brand receives, the more credible you become to consumers.

Ask for help or DIY?

If you’re debating whether or not to tackle your digital marketing DIY-style, the bottom line = bandwidth. Do you have the resources for ongoing management, training yourself or new staff, and dedicating team members to the effort?

If so, here’s a tip: set it and forget it! One of the top Google Ads mistakes novices make is constant changes that inhibit search engine learning, and this goes for both SEO and PPC. You want any adjustments to your strategy to be data driven, but that means giving it the time to collect the data in the first place.

Frequently Asked Questions

We threw a lot of information at you. And if you’re still unsure and weighing your options of SEO vs. PPC, or SEO 🤝PPC, we hope these frequently asked questions will help you decide.

What is the difference between keywords and keyphrases?

Keyphrases are the search terms that are typed into the search bar when someone is browsing the internet.

Keywords are the building blocks of ‌search terms, typically single words that capture the essence of a query.

Should my PPC landing page have a keyword or keyphrase in the content?

Yes, your PPC landing page should have the target keyword or phrase in the content. This is helpful for ensuring the page remains relevant to the ad copy and the user’s search query.

Not only does this improve the user experience, but it also signals to search engines that your page is a good match for the user’s intent.

What is a quality score for PPC?

Quality Score is Google’s way of measuring how well your keywords, ads, and landing pages match the intent behind a user’s search. The better the match, the more relevant your ad experience is likely to be, which can improve performance and help reduce wasted ad spend.

I have a limited budget, should I set money aside for SEO or PPC?

This is one instance where we encourage you to weigh SEO vs. PPC for your business. We recommend PPC for short-term and immediate results. This works best for product launches, promotions, or opening a new location for a pre-existing (and recognizable) business.

SEO is a long-term strategy that boasts results that also last longer than PPC. If you are more interested in building trust with your audience, SEO is the way to go.

We can talk you through the pros and cons of both, and develop a strategy to start with one, and later incorporate the other once you have the marketing budget.

How does social media play into PPC and SEO?

Social media works separately from these two strategies, but is still a very effective tool in the marketing world. While SEO and PPC focus on search engines, social media can help you engage with your audience and cultivate relationships with them.

What is keyword stuffing?

Keyword stuffing is known as a “black-hat” SEO technique that uses keywords repeatedly and unnaturally throughout your content. We don’t recommend it as it violates Google’s spam policies and makes it harder for the user to interact with your page.

Instead, you want to use keywords and phrases strategically throughout your copy. Most experts suggest staying between a 2 to 5% keyword density in your copy.

When you hire our digital marketing team, we take care of this for you. Our writers thoroughly research the topic based on user intent, strategically place keywords where they fit naturally, and keep keyword density within an acceptable range.

How do I decide which platform to run PPC ads on?

It helps to know your target audience to determine which platform to run ads on. At Lifted Logic, we can either take the reins or teach you how to make sure you are targeting the right people, at the right time, in the right place.

In addition to answering the question of SEO vs. PPC, we can also help develop and execute strategies that align with your business goals and budget.

Employ SEO and PPC strategies to help your business grow with Lifted Logic

If you’re ready to partner with a leading digital marketing agency to boost your online presence, contact us to get lifted 👽 When it comes to SEO vs. PPC, reach out to start the conversation, and we’ll help you with the rest. AFK for now.