Top 11 Reasons SEO is Better Than PPC
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I stopped by my buddy Brad “Ewhisper” Geddes site today to send him a funny list of dumb PPC ads, and noticed his Top 10 reasons PPC is better than SEO. Of course, I had to add a little one-upsmanship. In reality, both SEO AND PPC are essential to online marketing visibility, and they complement each other nicely, but I gotta have some fun with ol’ Ewhisper, and, like him, I tend to be a little bit biased.
11. It’s funner to buy traffic for cash rather than to lease it.
10. Bandwidth is cheap.
9. Who really wants to measure EVERYTHING when you can use your unagi like Ross?
8. There’s no such thing as SEO Fraud if you get a good consultant.
7. You don’t have to deal with customer service.
6. Even non-targeted traffic can be siphoned off somewhere.
5. SEO’s aren’t quite clever enough to implement “smart pricing”.
4. You’re helping to improve search engine relevancy.
3. Natural search arbitrage is usually deemed spam and Shari Thurow reports it.
2. No bid wars, and crappy sites don’t cost you.
1. Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free**?
**Okay, free is a total misnomer, but you get the point - and credit goes to Doug Stotland of MSN Adcenter who I had the pleasure of meeting briefly at SES.
*Disclaimer - I do SOME PPC and it is a great method to drive traffic, but please understand my bias here. I love all kinds of converting traffic, I just like long-hanging fruit. I’m amazed at the developments in PPC in the last year that I haven’t really kept up, and it does truly move as fast, if not faster than SEO with algo changes, etc. There’s some GREAT money to be made in both fields, and if you can master both, you’re going to be in great shape.
14 Comments
Mr SEO
August 17th, 2006,
3:06 pm
Don’t forget SEO is preferred 5 to 1 over PPC. I wrote a great article on it. People know organic listings are relevant and PPC may not be.
Xenith
August 17th, 2006,
8:16 pm
Every seasoned SEO knows PPC blows
Why rent when you can buy?
Dan
August 18th, 2006,
5:13 am
They are becoming very similar beasts with the introduction of the quality score algorithm half way through last year. Throwing in various filters and the like. Clearly they arent completely the same, I personally click more paid ads than organics but on the level of whats better Id be on the fence.
Starked SF, Unforgiving News from the Bay » Blog Archive » Talk of the Town: Friday, August 18
August 18th, 2006,
10:16 am
[...] Stuntdubl’s 11 REasons Why SEO is Better than PPC. [...]
Top 10 Ways One Pays For Free Traffic (i.e. SEO) » eWhisper.net
August 18th, 2006,
1:35 pm
[...] This was originally going to be a follow up to ‘Top 10 Ways PPC is Better Than SEO‘ with my own post on how SEO is better than PPC; however, Todd beat me to it with his ‘Top 11 Reasons SEO is Better Than PPC‘. Therefore, let’s shift the focus to how one pays for SEO. [...]
Play Satan
August 18th, 2006,
4:02 pm
Top SEO Blogs…
Here is a list of SEO Blogs / related sites that I read:
The Link Spiel - http://thelinkspiel.blogspot.com
Threadwatch.org - Marketing and Technology Discussed - http://www.threadwatch.org
Search Engine Roundtable - http://www.seroundtable.com/
SEOmo…
Jörn Malek
August 19th, 2006,
10:56 am
If I would use pay per click on any of our main keywords I’d be broke in one day (they find us with over 150,000 different search-strings each month. Luckily we’re becoming more independant from search-engines every day (Google.com 7%, Yahoo 18%) I hope the trend keeps on going this way. Who needs over 14 Million results looking for “Costa Rica Hotel Information”.
Have a happy day
Jörn
twodotfive
August 19th, 2006,
2:01 pm
Top 6 Reasons why PPC is Better if Used With SEO…
…
Brandon Hopkins
August 20th, 2006,
3:05 pm
PPC definitely still has it’s place in the market, without PPC, new sites can’t usually get any traffic from Google for the first year or so. At least for any well searched term.
Hotelguru
August 21st, 2006,
7:51 am
Agree on the PPC for new sites aspect - its quite challenging and time consuming, even with SEO to get great search results and rankings…PPC can boost visibility while this happens.
Gordon
September 3rd, 2006,
3:33 pm
I always believe both PPC and SEO can co-exist. SEO is virtually free, while top PPC ads can outrank first natural search result almost by default.
The Lame PPC and SEO Debate » Online Marketing Blog
December 19th, 2006,
12:05 pm
[...] You don’t have to look far to find commentary about PPC vs SEO, some good humor and lively debate. [...]
richard brewer
December 25th, 2006,
9:28 am
PPC and SEO exist for a reason. Understanding what your goals and expectations are for what they both can offer is what’s called Marketing & Advertising. The problem here is that there are too many people who get caught up in these SEO vs. PPC debates; instead of learning about what their clients needs are.
SEO And PPC Should Be Friends
March 25th, 2007,
12:08 am
[...] While most online marketers agree that SEO and PPC are an essential in search engine marketing, many people are on only one side of the fence. Todd Malicoat has a rundown of why he thinks SEO is better than PPC. Although Todd makes some interesting points, I think that SEO and PPC should go hand in hand together. PPC should compliment SEO and Vice Versa. Here I have outlined seven reasons that SEO and PPC should be friends. [...]