SEO Resources - Frequently Asked Questions
Why Should SEO and SEM Costs-Per-Click Be Evaluated Differently?
Many companies, when weighing the costs/benefits of hiring a Search Engine Optimization firm as compared with utilizing Pay-Per-Click advertising, begin to evaluate based on a cost-per-click basis. This seems reasonable at first consideration. The desired end of both services is bringing traffic to your web site. Since you know how much you're paying for each, and the results of each are quite measurable, it seems to make sense to weight them on a cost-per-click basis. However, there is something missing here, and it's quite important.
Pay-Per-Click Advertising is like any other advertising in that you pay for it while it's up, and once you stop paying, it's down and out. A television ad, for example, costs a company a lot of money while it runs. The ad, hopefully, will result in a return on the company's investment while it runs - because once it's done, the results fall right off. Pay-Per-Click Advertising is the same way. As soon as your budget has been met, or you decide to stop running the ads, they fall off entirely. That means no more clicks.
Search Engine Optimization, on the other hand, is more of an investment in your company's infrastructure. Gaining organic high rankings in Google or another major Search Engine can be difficult. It requires fresh, relevant content, a great deal of inbound links and creating pages that users, well, use. . .and frequently at that. However, the benefits of Search Engine Optimization over those of Pay-Per-Click Advertising are glaring and ought not be ignored.
Essentially, once your site has been built with SEO in mind - your pages optimized and geared to provide users with useful tools and information, fresh content being added on a regular basis through a Content Management System or otherwise, etc - the benefits you'll see have no real end. So while your SEO firm might be able to show you X amount of increase in visits since you hired them for their campaign what you need to keep in mind is that after you stop paying them the results won't go anywhere. In other words, if you're lucky enough to have earned #1 rankings on Google or another Search Engine your SEO firm has done a great job - and should you choose to stop paying them you should be able to maintain your rankings in-house without too much trouble.
So when you sit down to evaluate whether your company should invest in Pay-Per-Click Advertising or Search Engine Optimization, remember that while Pay-Per-Click is a great way to start getting clicks in no time flat, Search Engine Optimization is often a better long-term solution to keeping the traffic rolling in - and once you've got good organic rankings you should have no trouble staying there.
