In the battle for marketing dollars, many businesses are torn between search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. In 2013, the tide seemed to turn toward PPC as concerns about the death of SEO prompted businesses to slow down their SEO spending. The changes to Google Google’s algorithms meant marketers must shift their focus from keyword-heavy copy to relevant content linked with Google authorship, many experts said.
2014 Budgets
As businesses plan their 2014 marketing budgets, many are wondering if these death knells mean they should move completely away from SEO. But businesses shouldn’t move so quickly. Google’s changes were designed to stop those who were trying to work the system. For honest businesses, keywords and backlinks can still improve search results, especially when those tools flow naturally throughout a business’s well-crafted, informative copy.
Meanwhile, PPC seems to be just as popular as ever with marketers. In its report, The 2013 State of Paid Search, 72 percent of businesses surveyed reported they plan to spend more on PPC in 2014, up from 70 percent who increased spending in 2013. Google AdWords was by far the area where businesses planned to spend the most money on paid search, followed by Bing Ads, display networks, and Facebook.
Analytics Issues
One force driving businesses toward paid search is Google’s decision to limit analytics. In recent months, marketers have begun noticing the words “not provided” under many areas of their results. Security is a top concern for many search engine providers and as a result, they’re masking keyword referral data.
Paid search customers don’t have this problem. Google gives its AdWords customers access to keywords, helping them learn whether their current SEO efforts are working. But do customers have to pay? Kissmetrics came up with a few ways to get around the “not provided” issue, although the more instances a business has, the less these methods will work.
This alone could serve as an incentive for businesses to move marketing dollars toward PPC advertising in 2014. The lack of feedback on SEO efforts can lead a marketer to feel as though he or she is operating in the dark and with no insight, it will be difficult to plan future campaigns.
Economy Improving
One major difference between SEO and PPC is that PPC requires money. Marketing budgets have been locked down for the past few years, as businesses struggle to survive tough economic times.
Economists predict the financial outlook will improve slightly in 2014, with many marketers stating that they’ll increase their social media and content marketing budgets for the year. This cautious optimism could be a win for PPC as businesses become more comfortable with spending money on marketing.
Along with the benefits of improved analytics, PPC advertising is popular because of its immunity from search engine algorithm changes. Businesses must struggle to keep up with changes affecting their search engine marketing efforts, but when major changes happen, they’re also required to update existing content to ensure it stays visible. Paid search results remain viable for the duration of a business’s paid campaign.
SEO Takes Time
As anyone who has ever deployed an SEO campaign will attest, an SEO campaign requires patience. New content can take weeks, even months, to begin appearing in search engine results and as new content comes along, it may be bumped lower until it disappears from the first page of search results.
With PPC advertising, businesses receive quicker results, which may pay off if it results in bringing in new income. Google’s Keyword Planner can help AdWords customers come up with the best keywords for their campaigns. It can also provide traffic estimates to help marketers create a budget for their campaigns.
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