SEO vs PPC

According to new market research published today (13 Sep 2005) by iProspect, 35% of organizations that outsource their natural search engine optimization and also participate in pay per click advertising – and can measure the ROI of each – recognize a higher return from SEO. See the full report from EmediaWire here.

This is interesting data indeed, but not really that surprising when one considers the amount of time and effort that goes into properly managed search engine optimisation.

The long-term rewards of good natural rankings can be enormous. However we strongly recommend that new clients do not try SEO until they have high quality data about the most important search terms. There is no need to purchase the data – it is best derived from the pay per click system (there is double benefit of receive real, targeted traffic while also gaining valuable keyword data).

So while SEO may be the more potent marketing process longterm, the information provided by PPC remains a valuable stage in the overall process of web marketing.