It had been mentioned before, but it bears repeating: Traffic is the lifeblood of any online business. The success of an online business largely depends on the number of visitors it can generate for its web pages. This really is an undoubtable fact.

The topic for a lot of debates these days, however, is that the subject of SEO vs. PPC is two of the most effective and powerful traffic generating techniques. Even though their end goal is the same, they are different concepts that require different strategies and methods.

Both are effective methods of driving traffic to a website. Still, one strategy can work very well for certain circumstances; while using the other, you might encounter problems generating visitors in the same situation.

To succeed with one method, or with both of them, marketers should understand their limitations and strengths in order to implement them correctly under optimal conditions.

When to use SEO?

SEO refers to a group of activities aimed at moving a website to the first page of the major search engines. Search Engine Optimization is essential for online businesses, as data show that 80 % of the traffic coming on any website will come from the various search engines.

The greatest search engine is unquestionably Google, which garners over 3.5 billion searches per day; therefore, most SEO campaigns target this particular search engine. So, when to use SEO methods over PPC? Following are a few conditions when SEO would prove highly beneficial for an online company.

 - When consistent outcomes are required: SEO has a relatively long maturation period in comparison to PPC. Reaching the very first page of search engine results won't occur overnight or even in a week. Reaching the top of the SERPs will require time. However, after your website gets there through SEO.

You will enjoy constant traffic. Also, if you keep up with your search engine optimization (SEO) campaign, working to maintain and enhance outcomes, you can remain at the top for quite a while and reap long term benefits.

 - When you wish to build an authority website: An authority website is an established resource center for a particular niche. It's the "go-to" website when members of the niche need a piece of detailed information. When it goes, an authority website will be able to create plenty of traffic based on URL recall alone.

The best method to set up an authority website is by continuously bringing visitors to your pages, eventually building up a reputation until it will become popular enough to control its market. The only way to sustainably generate the traffic required is through creative content powered by clever SEO planning.

 - When you wish to boost the value of your website: Websites are virtual real estate. If you plan to offer your website for a top price, you need to boost its worth. There are lots of things that may contribute to raising its worth. One of them is several monthly visitors on the website, consistency of traffic generated, page rank, search engine positions over a while, link popularity, etc.

All of these fall in the realm of SEO. Bear in mind that SEO is not "Free clicks" It's an enormous effort to create and promote content that takes a lot of time and money. 

When to Use PPC?

We proceed to another side Of the SEO vs. PPC debate. Pay-per-click marketing is a procedure of advertising on search engine results pages. Fundamentally, you bid to have your ads appear in the sponsored results when a person types in a question, including your targeted keywords.

Why is it called "pay per click"? As you have to pay for every single user that clicks on the advertisement you are promoting. Popular PPC advertisements platforms comprise Google Advertising (AdWords), Bing Ads, and Facebook's advertisement platform.

So, when should you use PPC Advertising? Below are some situations where PPC would prove highly beneficial for any online business.

 - When instant results are required: PPC will provide results quickly. Very quickly! You can count the moments prior to a rush of traffic come to your web pages. This is because the second your PPC campaign is approved (provided your bids are high enough to merit priority placement), your advertisements will immediately be displayed for countless people to see.

The traffic will nearly be instantaneous. Hence, PPC works incredibly well with product launches, squeeze webpages, CPA marketing, and affiliate marketing involving top

converting offers, joint venture (JV) jobs, seasonal promotions, event-focused advertising, and corresponding internet business campaigns.

 - When highly targeted traffic is sought: Contrary to SEO, PPC marketing will permit you to limit your prospects based on their demographic information. Most PPC platforms, like social media websites, permit you to market into the age range, gender, income bracket, education level, as well as marital status of the people to whom your ads will be sown.

Popular social networking sites like Facebook also let you target people based on their hobbies. This makes PPC a highly effective method of attaining the narrow group of people your business needs and directing them to your web pages.

 - When promoting a time-sensitive offer: Marketing products, services, or events with an expiration date is always a race with time. Many times, the long gestation period of search engine optimization campaigns would produce belated results.

For these time-sensitive events, the experience of PPC marketing will be perfect. Promoting an offer which will expire in 2 days? No problem. PPC can provide the traffic that you need in a couple of minutes.

 - When the website isn't intended for SEO, SEO requires content-rich sites which are regularly updated. This is the only approach to notify the search engines that your website is relevant and remind the search engines to keep your website near the top of the pile. Some sites aren't designed for this. For websites like this, traffic can be generated through PPC campaigns.

 - If you want to dominate search results on your keyword group: PPC results are displayed over the organic search results. This prominent position usually means that as much as 50 percent of the search traffic goes to the top 3 sponsored links in many situations.

By not using PPC in your marketing campaigns, you can lose all those clicks to your competitors. If you're serious about optimizing your click-share of available searches for keywords relevant to your company, you definitely must engage in PPC!

These are some situations where you may have an inclination toward a marketing method or the other.

We believe one shouldn't be thinking in terms of SEO vs. PPC - but instead, both SEO and PPC are significant and complementary elements of an online marketing strategy.