Is SEO better than PPC?

[MrCat]

I agree with ^^ him...

SEO is best for the long run and shouldn't be left out.

PPC on the other hand is an effective way to advertise your sites. The result would vary depending on how well you go about your campaign.

[rfresh]

It's not so much a question if SEO is better than PPC or vice versa - both are important, however, I would say SEO is more important. In other words, if you can pick only one, you need to focus on SEO. Once you have that taken care of, then you can work on other marketing avenues.

[earn]

[KansasDragon]

This thread is an interesting read, lots of good point counter-point discussion.

Isn't it a good idea to use PPC to work on testing and identifying quality keywords, not just the ones that look promising, but the ones that actually SELL a product? Just because words bring traffic effectively doesn't mean a thing, it's only worthwhile if they actually SELL something.

Then once you've tested via PPC, you can then do the additional work of SEO on your site, optimizing for those keywords you have tested and proven produce sales. As your SE traffic increases you can reduce your spend on the PPC.

Of course the real bottom line here is, are you selling on the page, or are you providing information on the page. If you're able to SELL on the page, and can get a quality ROI on the PPC, then by all means, use PPC, and use it to the extent that you continue getting increased profits at an acceptable ROI rate.

If it is just a information page, with some side advertising to try to monetize the page, then I'd much prefer SEO, since PPC is probably not going to produce sales at a high enough rate to give me a good ROI. I'd be using those pages to guide people gently to my products, or promotions. (but then again, only testing can answer the question of whether PPC can be effective on these pages.)

Yikes, after reading what I typed, I realize, I've read way too much Perry Marshall.. but he is a good resource.

[James Schramko]

[krisha]

[Kurt Henninger]

Ultimately, in order to properly use SEO, you are going to need to set-up a PPC campaign.

What a PPC campaign does is determine which keywords get traffic and converst to sales...with the emphasis on sales.

You can do all of the best SEO in the world, and get tons of traffic, but if you don't optimize for the right keywords, that traffic is virtually worthless.

So, use PPC while you are coming up with a good SEO strategy and use PPC to build your buying keywords list.

[nhynes57]

[iselin]

very good and helpful discussion and info here. Thank you for sharing guys.
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Mic,

[belablasko]

Yup i agree SEO is far better than PPC