Before online advertising, the SEO versus PPC debate didn't exist—and ROI was harder to demonstrate.

There are many different ways to target new audiences online. There’s email marketing, affiliate channels, impression based advertising (i.e. banner ads), audio and video commercials, and so on. But the two biggest online advertising methods available today are SEO and PPC. Both have distinct advantages as well as disadvantages, with the decision boiling down to the audience, cost, and company need.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

The goal with SEO is to attain the highest possible ranking for certain keywords or phrases in the organic search results of major search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. The highest ranked organic search results are the 10 listings that appear in the body of the first search results page. These are not to be confused with the paid ads (known as PPC or Pay Per Click ads) that are typically shown with a shaded background to the top and right hand side of search results.

SEO can be a very powerful technique for drawing interested audiences to your website. Roughly 75-80% of click-thru’s from search results pages are clicks on the organic search listings, which means Continue reading →