All of us probably have the same content marketing goals — to drive traffic to our website, boost sign-ups, build authority, and ultimately to make more money. All these are achievable with Quora, and yet it continues to fly under the radar.

If you want to supercharge your content marketing campaign, it’s about time you were serious about Quora marketing.

In this article, I’m going to show you how to use Quora marketing as part of your content strategy.

But before that…

What is Quora?

Quora is a place to ask and answer just about any question, either based on facts or opinions. Users can either upvote or downvote answers to determine which are the most or least helpful.

Different people use Quora for different reasons.

Some seek advice for their personal lives or careers; others look for recommendations for products and services. Some others just want to put their most interesting question on Quora.

Here’s an example:

This question has nearly 3 million views.

You see, Quora is a favorable place for professionals, marketers, businesses, and anyone who wants to put their brands in front of these users one way or another.

Why Quora Marketing?

Ultimately, Quora can help your content marketing strategy in several ways:

• You can use it as a solid source of referral traffic.
• You can generate quality leads no matter where you point them — social channels, sign-up forms, blog posts, etc.
• You can build authority from scratch and manage social influence.
• You can understand your audience better — what exactly are their pain points — and engage with them.

How to Answer Questions on Quora

Now that you have a good grasp of the benefits of Quora marketing, the million-dollar question is…

How do you choose the queries to respond to?

According to JD Prater, Quora’s evangelist, being the first or second to give the best answer to a question almost always guarantees you at the top spot of the ranking — a great opportunity to gain exposure for you and your brand.

But not all new questions are worth responding to. Use your discretion to size up the potential of the question to draw views and followers.

When choosing older questions to answer, check the stats first, like so:

It should give you an idea if the question has too many answers already, the last time the thread was active, the views it garnered over time, and the number of followers.

If a question has too many answers already, and you want to answer it, make sure to add value and new insights. Otherwise, your answer might just drown or drift away. If a thread hasn’t been active recently, it’s either because nobody’s visiting it or reading the answers anymore.

There are no hard and fast rules on the number of followers a question should have. But as a rule of thumb, questions with at least 20 followers are worth considering.

How to Use Quora Marketing

True to its marketing flywheel, Quora is best used on three standpoints — content marketing, thought leadership, and paid advertising.

Here are five proven ways to get the most out of your Quora marketing efforts:

1. Promote Existing Content

Quora provides one of the most clever ways to repurpose content and drive referral traffic.

Why is referral traffic important?

Referral traffic is your safety net amid constant search engine algorithm changes.

Quora is also a great avenue to share blog posts and other content that may not be getting the exposure they deserve.

Yes, social media channels may have numbers. But distribution-wise, Quora posts are evergreen and are indexed well by Google.

Ways to Promote Content on Quora

There are two ways to promote your content organically on Quora:

1. Write an original response.
2. Extract parts of your existing content.

Either way, you can then add links to your website in your answer. Make sure the links are relevant enough. Otherwise, people will think you are merely spamming.

If you are extracting your answer from your website content, I suggest making it anywhere between 100 and 200 words and then direct them to the original content on your site.

And make sure to re-word the extracted text or put it in quotation marks or brackets to avoid being flagged down as duplicate content. This helps Quora identify it as a quoted material rather than duplicate content, which can be removed.

Use Genuine Anchor Texts

When using anchor texts, don’t be too pushy.

Don’t say…

“Go to my blog to read more.”

“Check out my website for more information.”

Say…

“Check out the complete step-by-step process here.”

“Read this article to learn more.”

Any words actually will do — as long as it won’t make you look like a spam-monger who’s clearly only up for the views.

You can even include links to other websites as well to neutralize the look of your own links. 

2. Establish Thought Leadership

On Quora, credibility is king. If you think you don’t have it, build it. As a social Q&A platform, Quora makes for an ideal place to earn credibility and establish yourself or your business as an industry authority.

Truth is, Quora isn’t meant to be used for link building or growing referral traffic. The purpose of Quora is to answer questions, a.k.a. to give value. It’s where people of all stripes get to demonstrate their expertise on any subject and learn from one another at the same time.

If you align your philosophy with Quora’s — that is to provide value — you’ll eventually establish yourself or your business as a thought leader. In the long run, you’ll see people approaching you as an industry expert… just by giving valuable, insightful answers. And your personal or company brand will come naturally.

Becoming an Expert on Quora

It only takes 20 to 30 answers to the same topic for Quora’s algorithm to regard you as an expert in the field.

While there are some people who were already famous and well-respected in their industries when they used Quora, like Sheryl Sandberg, Mark Cuban, and Neil Patel…

Some have attributed their success to Quora marketing.

That’s why in the last two years, there have been so many C-suite executives, VPs, even consultants, coaches, and managers who have jumped on the Quora train to gain authority and social influence.

Even online learning platform Udemy and software company Ahrefs use Quora to expand their reach.

Most Viewed Writers

Of course, Quora incentivizes the top contributors of each topic by putting them in the “most viewed writers” roster.

Some of the best contributors on Quora have been picked up and quoted by the ranks of Forbes, HuffPost, Business Insider, Inc, and other trusted publications.

When you enter a topic, the top contributors are the ones you’ll get to see first.

So, how often should you answer questions? I suggest responding to at least once or twice a week just to get the ball rolling. And once you get the hang of it, you can most certainly do more than that.

Notice that three of the top five most viewed writers in the Entrepreneurship topic only had less than 13 answers in the last 30 days. It speaks volumes that it only needs a few valuable and sincere answers to make Quora work for you.

(Though mad props to the two guys who answered more than 120 questions in the last 30 days. They must have all the time in the world.)

Anyway, these views are futile if they don’t convert. That’s my next point.

Related: Google E-A-T: How to Create Content That Ranks Higher on Google

3. Generate Quality Leads

Quora is entirely based on demand-driven questions and answers.

And as a result, the traffic it generates is likely going to convert better because users are purposeful with their visit, compared to Facebook, for instance, where people visit to connect with people or just kill time.

As long as you are providing real value in your answers, people naturally get attracted to your profile. 

So in your bio, make sure to have a call-to-action, whether it’s a sign-up form, social media links, or a website link — anything that’ll get your foot in a prospect’s door. Mention your business, services, or company, too.

Here’s a great Quora profile from Single Grain’s CEO:

Now, imagine if you are giving valuable answers. Thousands of people may potentially visit your full bio with a link to your website. That’s a steady stream of traffic and leads right there.

4. Build Conversations Around Your Brand

The real impact of Quora is in finding your tribe of followers and getting involved with them. That‘s why Quora is becoming a robust platform to build presence, whether it’s for your company or yourself.

With its new feature Quora for Business, you can now set up an official page for your company, at no cost. Though it’s still in beta, Quora for Business is a promising tool to ignite conversations around your brand.

And with an official business page, it will also enable you to keep tabs of the discussions that mention your brand and easily engage with people who are talking about your business.

If these users have something to speak of your service, results, and experiences, that will make for a great starting point for a case study.

Why Set Up Quora for Business

Having a business account for your company has a few benefits. It allows you to address:

• Technical questions
• Industry questions
• Business FAQs

While you can answer those things using your personal account, the benefit actually is on your audience’s end.

A business account forms a business’s own persona, making it easier for past, present, and future customers to understand and communicate with your business.

5. Find Targeted Blog Ideas

Quora is a powerful tool to do market and customer research. Real people come here to look for answers, so it can’t get any perfect to learn more about your audience.

This makes it very useful for marketers to create more targeted content based on:

• Problems they are dealing with
• What they are looking for
• What their interests are

Yes, there are a lot of fantastic tools out there to find topic ideas like Ubersuggest, BuzzSumo, and Answer The Public.

But with Quora, you get ideas that SURELY resonate with your audience because it came from them, including how they frame their questions.

When looking for these questions, make sure it hasn’t been answered anywhere around the web yet or at least questions that already have some following. Otherwise, you might end up answering the most common questions that can easily be Googled. If you have unique insights on the subject, then write content around it by all means.

Finding Blog Topic Ideas on Quora

There are two ways to find blog topic ideas on Quora.

1. Use industry keywords to look for relevant questions.
2. Follow industry topics and spaces to keep up with the trending posts that may interest your audience.

If you think nobody is asking the right questions in your niche, then start the conversation by all means.

6. Reach Potential Customers

From an advertising standpoint, Quora gives you a cheaper and more effective way of reaching out to your potential customers by promoting answers.

These answers could be yours or someone else who has great things to say about your product or service. You also have the option to use image or text-based ads on Quora. But that’s for another topic.

Truth be told, Quora does not have a massive pool of audience as Facebook and Google. By contrast, Quora has a more demand-driven audience. As I said, users visit Quora with clear intentions of researching, finding answers, or evaluating products.

That puts them in the right mindset to hear different opinions, and they would probably not hesitate to click on ads that may be of interest to them.

Right now, the minimum bid for a click on Quora is $0.01. That’s way cheaper compared to Google’s average CPC at $1 to $2 and Facebook’s $0.40.

Conclusion

To maximize your Quora marketing efforts, here are a few reminders:

1. Complete your profile with a professional photo, description, credentials, and links to your website and social media handles.
2. Create in-depth content on your blog so users have an irresistible reason to check out your website.
3. Place links in your answer only once, when in context, or when necessary.

Now that you’ve got some Quora marketing tactics up your sleeve, it’s time to put in the work and make Quora the up-and-coming star of your marketing toolset.

Have you used Quora marketing as part of your content strategy? What are the results it has brought so far? I’d love to know in the comments.

Editor’s Note: This article was first published on 1 January 2020 and has been updated regularly since then for relevance and comprehensiveness. 

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The post How to Use Quora Marketing to Supercharge Your Content Strategy appeared first on 99signals.

Search engine optimization has a lot of moving parts that make it a tricky marketing strategy.

Despite that, SEO is the way to go for a lot of businesses big and small simply because it delivers the best ROI and reinforces sustainable growth.

But to achieve this takes time. And this often means needing more budget.

Given the nature of brand-new startups — the lack of resources and the race against time to build a reputation, generate buzz, and create invaluable content — SEO for startup businesses is even trickier.

This is the bane of many early-stage startups’ existence. And your startup is probably one of them.

How should startups approach SEO?

In this post, you’ll learn everything you need to know about SEO for startups in under 10 minutes.

We will cover all the basics:

• Is SEO for startups the same as regular SEO?
• SEO for tech startups vs. SEO for SaaS startups
• What search engines really want from you
• How search engines measure KPIs
• How to build an SEO-friendly website for startups
• Best SEO tools for startups
• When to hire an SEO agency for startups

Let’s get your startup in the front door of organic search, shall we?

But first…

Is SEO for Startups the Same as Regular SEO?

Yes!

Apart from the degree of the challenge, SEO for startups is the same as SEO for any other type of company.

Google doesn’t give a damn who you are — whether you are a small eCommerce shop, a billion-dollar tech company, or a startup.

What Google wants is simple — to deliver the most relevant, high-quality content to its users.

To produce such content is one of the basic things to win the favor of search engines and occupy the most important parts of the SERP real estate.

But as mentioned, startups have to deal with a different challenge.

Often startups don’t have the means as immense as that of big companies, yet you have to scale quickly and take on the heavyweights in your industry.

And for the most part, this equates to enterprise SEO on a shoestring budget, which often comes with a few trade-offs.

Let’s look at hotels as an example. The top results are dominated by the likes of Hotels.com, Expedia.com, Tripadvisor.com, and Booking.com.

Despite the mighty presence and brand affinity of these big companies in the search, Google still displays local hotels in the most important part of the top SERP — the local pack.

This is the power of local SEO that some startups may be able to take advantage of.

If you nail the basics of search engine optimization and develop a self-sustaining SEO strategy for startups within your budget, you are bound to accomplish greater things with your business.

SEO for Tech Startups vs. SEO for SaaS Startups

What about SEO for tech and SaaS startups? Is there a difference?

There’s none.

Whether you are a tech or SaaS company (technically still tech), Google doesn’t care what you are.

The same SEO principles apply to both tech and SaaS companies.

What to Include in SEO Strategy for Startups

So what do search engines really want from you?

Your business and your SEO objectives are none of Google’s business. Google has its own MO.

In terms of ranking pages in SERPs, here’s an SEO checklist for startup websites that Google is looking at:

• Accessible Pages

It may be stating the obvious, but search engines need to crawl and index your website before displaying your pages.

• Good Content

When I say good content, it’s relevant, high-quality, unique, and actionable.

Content that does not meet the search intent of a query is going to be buried six feet under.

• Smooth User Experience

Long gone are the days when most websites are static, with no regard to user experience.

Responsive, fast-loading, and easy-to-navigate websites are the name of the game now.

• Good User Engagement

Good user engagement often is a by-product of good content and an awesome user experience.

User engagement is one good way for Google to tell if your website is serving your visitors well.

• Page and Technical Optimization

Optimization on the technical and page-level is something both Google and users would want to easily get around your website.

How Search Engines Measure These KPIs

You’ve probably heard it all before — to rank on top of SERPs, you need quality blog posts and great user experience.

But these phrases are ambiguous.

How does Google actually decide on these fuzzy words?

Google’s Search Quality Senior Strategist Andrey Lipattsev pointed out that links, content, and RankBrain are the top three ranking factors Google uses.

Let’s dissect these factors.

• Keywords

How Google looks at keywords when matching content to searches has been one of the many critical changes in its search algorithms in the last few years.

Those times when Google just matches search queries to the words on a page are long gone.

Google’s search algorithms are capable of peering through your page’s topical relevance and match it to the search term’s contextual sense.

• Backlinks

As mentioned, links are one of Google’s top three ranking signals for ranking pages.

Google usually sees content that has a lot of inbound links pointing to it as high-quality and engaging.

Note, however, that link quality always precedes link quantity.

• UX Signals

When ranking pages, Google also takes its cue from the UX point of view. And user experience uses a combo of UX signals to know how it fares.

These UX signals include load time (learn more about core web vitals), mobile-friendliness, encryption, and no intrusive interstitials.

• Engagement Metrics

Engagement signals are best measured through Google Analytics.

In Google Analytics, you can find a goldmine of engagement KPIs like page views, time on page, bounce rates, average session duration, pages per session, exit pages, and a good deal of other SEO metrics.

• Location

Including location in an SEO strategy depends on your line of business.

If your startup fully relies on location data to engage with new or old customers, location is an important ranking factor when it comes down to relevance for location-based searches.

When Uber, Airbnb, and Lyft started out, they made sure they dominated local results.

Google My Business is often the fastest way to catapult your site to the top of the SERP.

Regardless of the SERP being dominated by big names, Google is still bound to display some local search results whenever it’s fitting.

Sure, local SEO won’t work for every startup. But if you are serving local areas, it’s a huge advantage.

Take hotels, for example.

For many small companies, local search listings are the only way to overthrow big names from the top search results.

Learn more actionable local SEO tips via this Marketing Mantra podcast episode with local SEO expert John Vuong.

How to Build an SEO-Friendly Website for Startups

Building a website for startups takes more than just buying cheap web hosting.

Scaling your growth with it is going to be an uphill battle.

So how does a startup website that’s optimized for search engines look like?

Here are some SEO tips for startups when building an SEO-friendly website:

• Web Hosting

Startups need to evolve as fast as they can, and settling on the wrong web hosting package can be a costly mistake.

It can be a bottleneck to your growth.

Choosing between a shared hosting, a virtual private server, or a dedicated hosting can make all the difference to your website’s overall performance.

If you want optimum site speed performance, shared hosting should not be an option at all.

More than the site speed, lower-tier hosting also puts limits on the number of simultaneous site visitors and the amount of data that can be transferred between your site and your visitor.

If your company outgrows your hosting package, your visitors will likely have a tough time accessing your website. So choose a hosting package that will grow with you.

In addition, you also have to consider your host’s uptime record, security system in place to protect your website, and some performance features like web cache, content delivery network (CDC), etc.

Some of the best web hosts for startups are Bluehost, Cloudways, InMotion, and WPX Hosting.

• Code

The code is a critical website performance factor. It affects everything from site speed to your site’s crawlability and indexability.

If you are using WordPress and other CMSs, beware because many of these are bloated.

You can still use them, but be sure to clean the code.

The good thing about WordPress is the ready-to-use templates, enabling users to publish new pages at the click of a button and write content in a display-rich interface.

And you can do so much more with the help of SEO plugins.

It makes building websites so much easier.

• Design

Search engines can’t see the graphic design of your site, but they can understand the layout of a page and the structure of your site.

So long as you mark them up accurately, you should be good.

Additionally, you also need to take UX signals into account, as mentioned earlier, because they directly affect engagement signals.

User experience is a direct ranking signal for mobile pages.

But it doesn’t mean user experience and engagement signals don’t matter to desktop rankings.

Case in point — high bounce rates and turtle-slow page speed are bad indications to Google regardless of devices.

• Content

Content is the reason people use search engines. Meeting that intent is going to bring your pages further on top of SERPs.

Producing good content on a regular basis is a big challenge, not only of startups but of many modern businesses in general.

As mentioned, good content is of high quality. But this modifier seems to be too vague.

To elaborate further what makes content good, here are some qualifying questions:

• Is it valuable?
• Is it actionable?
• Is it unique?
• Is it relevant to your visitor?
• Is it link-worthy?
• Is it shareworthy?
• Is it easy to read and understand?
• Is it visually appealing?
• Is it optimized for both search engines and users?

If your content ticks all the boxes (or at least most of them), then it’s bound to get some traction in organic search.

Add to that a solid distribution and promotion strategy.

Check out the content strategy of some of the most successful startups if you don’t have a starting point.

Think Uber, Airbnb, Slack, Skillshare, Glossier, and Mint.

With the help of a robust content marketing strategy, these brands were able to leverage the maximum power of content to put their brand front and center in organic search.

• On-Page Optimization

You can read many on-page optimization guides, so we won’t dwell much into it.

But I’d like to make a few key points concerning search engine optimization on the page level.

Here are some of them:

• Page URLs

Per Google’s SEO guidelines, page URLs have to be short, descriptive, and readable.

Include your primary target keyword in it, but it should match the page’s content.

• Page Titles

Page titles are the first thing people see in SERPs.

Make sure it’s descriptive, compelling, and readable.

Include your primary target keyword in it, but it should also match the content.

Ideally, page titles should be no more than 70 characters long.

• Headings

Break your body texts with comprehensible headings.

And headings should be in order.

Google’s webmaster trends analyst John Mueller had stated before that it doesn’t matter if you have multiple H1 tags.

But I’d still recommend using headings accordingly for better user experience.

• Content

A page’s content should be unique and useful.

It should contain information that meets the search intent behind target keywords.

• Images

Google Images is the second biggest search engine after Google Search.

Use images to increase your chances in the organic search rankings.

Also, images are best used to break up large chunks of texts.

Read this nifty guide to image SEO for some tips.

• Keywords

Include keywords in page URLs, page titles, headings, content, and image alt texts.

Google has been like a broken record saying this — avoid keyword stuffing.

• Internal Links

Internal links can increase your visitor’s time on your site and significantly reduce the bounce rate.

They are also good for passing on link equity to the least performing pages.

• Structured Data

Search engines use structured data to display rich results, which can lead to more conversions.

Take advantage of this to mark up your pages’ sections like reviews, articles, addresses, etc.

Best SEO Tools for Startups

When it comes to SEO tools for startups, you have a quite wide variety of options. 

Choosing the best tools boils down to your needs and how much you are willing to spend.

On this list, we will rule out free SEO tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, Google PageSpeed Insights, etc. These tools are a no-brainer.

1. SEMrush

SEMrush is another all-in-one digital marketing tool that’s as popular as Ahrefs.

It boasts a range of SEO tools to meet all your SEO needs, including keyword research, competitor research, backlink analysis, site audit, PPC analysis, and so many more.

SEMrush plans start at $99.95 per month.

Read Sandeep’s comprehensive SEMrush review.

2. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is one of the most popular all-in-one digital marketing tools out there.

It comes with a variety of SEO tools you can think of.

But one Ahrefs tool that’s highly regarded by the SEO community is its backlink analysis capabilities.

Ahrefs gives you an accurate link profile, whether it’s your website or your competitors.

Ahrefs plans start at $99 per month.

Read Sandeep’s in-depth Ahrefs review.

3. Serpstat

Serpstat is a full-suite SEO tool.

Its toolsuite includes keyword research, competitor research, rank tracking, backlink analysis, content marketing, on-page audit, and PPC analysis, among many others.

Serpstat is a good option for startups with a shoestring budget. Its basic plan costs $69.

Read Sandeep’s comprehensive Serpstat review.

4. Moz

Moz is the OG of all SEO tools, which first started in 2004.

Though its success has been eclipsed by the likes of Ahrefs and SEMrush, Moz is still a great contender.

Moz plans start at $99 per month.

Read Sandeep’s side-by-side comparison review of Moz and SEMrush.

5. Ninja Outreach

Ninja Outreach specializes in influencer marketing. It’s quite a nifty tool for outreach campaigns.

If you want to focus on spying on your competitor’s backlinks and get them for your website, Ninja Outreach is the most practical tool.

Ninja Outreach plans start at $199 per month.

When Should You Hire an SEO Agency for Startups?

If managing an SEO campaign on your own seems like beyond your skillset, or you would rather focus on running your company, there’s always the option to use SEO services for startups.

Why should you hire an SEO agency for startups?

These agencies have established expertise and industry knowledge to help your startup navigate the patchy waters of SEO, especially if you have tough competition.

The SEO strategy for startups is more complex, and so it requires a great deal of time and resources.

Only an experienced SEO agency for startups can carry your SEO campaigns with finesse and great potential to generate bigger ROI.

If you have in-house SEOs who can handle all aspects of SEO, you are probably in good hands.

If you are looking to DIY your SEO strategy but you lack the technical knowledge of SEO, you should be safer with hiring a competent SEO consultant.

Hiring professional SEO services is appealing.

But I have to warn you, it costs an arm and a leg to sign on the competent ones who actually know what they are doing.

Then again, it’s up to you and what your budget can accommodate.

In Conclusion

With many brand-new startups not having a hefty marketing budget and often running on a skeleton crew, it comes as no surprise that SEO is the last thing early-stage growth and marketing employees would approach.

And that’s okay. SEO is a long game.

From content marketing to brand building to lead generation to customer acquisition, SEO really takes time to pay off big time.

But you don’t really have to depend solely on SEO to achieve your goals.

What’s certain is that you should start working on it from day one.

What are your SEO struggles at this stage of your startup?

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SEO vs. PPC — it’s a long-standing debate we often see in Facebook groups, forums, and everywhere on the web. While this is a legitimate comparison, it’s often viewed from a misguided standpoint.

Many new marketers and businesses still think of SEO and PPC as mutually exclusive. If you approach these search marketing strategies like two warring factions, then you are going to miss out on one profitable opportunity.

To be clear, one is not necessarily better over the other on all accounts. But if you are left with a tough call between SEO and PPC due to budget constraints, it all comes down to understanding what your business needs and goals are.

Did you know that 93% of online experiences begin with a search engine?

There are 1 billion people who use Google search every month. And as of January 2020, Google owns more than 81% of search engine market share, which obviously means Bing, Baidu, Yahoo!, and other search engines go far behind.

The best way to take advantage of this staggering number is through search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.

In this article, we will do a deep dive into which acquisition strategy is better, or rather, which strategy is right for your business.

Some points we will tackle here:

• Overview of SEO and PPC
• Difference between PPC and SEO
• Pros and cons of SEO and PPC
• When to use SEO and PPC
• Using SEO and PPC together

To start off, let’s have a quick overview of what SEO and PPC are.

What is SEO?

SEO is the process of optimizing a website and its webpages to increase their organic search visibility in search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing.

And when you say organic, that means without the influence of factors like paid ads and direct traffic.

Search engines use algorithms to identify which websites or pages to show in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for a specific query.

In essence, a critical part of SEO is finding out what search engines consider relevant and then optimizing your website and webpages accordingly.

What is PPC?

In PPC advertising, advertisers pay a publisher only for ads that are clicked.

Google Ads, formerly called Google AdWords, is the most popular PPC advertising platform. It’s even become synonymous with “paid search.” Often these terms are used interchangeably, even though platforms like Bing Ads work similarly. Other PPC advertising platforms include RevContent, AdRoll, and Bidvertiser.

But how does PPC work?

In paid search, advertisers usually bid on keywords or keyphrases relevant to their niche. Advertising platforms like Google Ads and Bing Ads help businesses find new customers through these keywords.

Today, the PPC model has been embraced by social media giants like Facebook, Twitter, and Quora.

Paid social like Facebook Ads and Twitter Ads help social media users find businesses based on their behavior and interests.

Social PPC has been gaining a lot of traction in the last couple of years with giants like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and LinkedIn making pay-per-click a major advertising model.

To even out the playing field in this SEO vs. PPC debate, we will focus on paid search rather than paid social to refer to PPC advertising.

SEO vs. PPC: Difference Between PPC and SEO

SEO and PPC have two main differences.

First, paid ads are displayed at the top of the first search engine results page (SERP), while organic listings appear just below the paid ads.

Second, traffic that comes from organic listings is free, while traffic from paid ads is paid for per click, thus pay-per-click. The cost per click depends on several factors.

To satisfy your question as to whether you should go after an organic-centric approach or ad-centric approach, let’s take a look at the pros and cons of SEO and PPC and how they stack up against each other.

Pros and Cons of SEO

New Media Campaigns claims that SEO is 5.66 times better than paid search ads. 

I’m not entirely sure how they were able to come up with this seemingly random number.

But the thing is, there are so many factors that you have to take into account, and these factors are highly dependent on each individual business.

Hence, one can’t really use the SEO-is-better-than-PPC answer across the board.

But if you ask: “What are the advantages and disadvantages of SEO compared to PPC?” I have the answer for you.

Why Choose SEO

Here are the benefits of SEO vs. PPC:

1. SEO costs less than PPC

Imagine a blog ranking for over a hundred thousand keywords and drives hundreds of thousands of views per month through organic search.

If you were to pay for that traffic through PPC, it would set you back millions of dollars per year.

Hence, investing in your content team is way more cost-efficient than spending on paid search in the grand scheme of things.

2. SEO results compound over time

One reason SEO is better than PPC and traditional marketing strategies is its high potential to bring in compounding ROI over time.

If you ran a content marketing campaign six months ago, the results you will get 12 months from now will be so much bigger than what you are getting at the moment.

Even if you slow down on producing content for a couple of months after your campaign, so long as you are ranking high in the SERPs for the right keywords, your SEO and content efforts can still guarantee you with a steady stream of organic traffic.

For this very reason, SEO is hands down the best marketing channel for long-term, scalable results.

3. SEO drives more clicks

Most searchers ignore paid ads. This translates to organic search results getting 70% of the clicks.

This is an important thing to think about considering PPC occupies more of the above-the-fold content.

Ultimately, it pays to understand the searcher’s intent. But remember, clicks are different from conversions.

Why NOT Choose SEO

SEO is not without flaws. It has its own fair share of disadvantages.

1. SEO takes time

SEO is not the best marketing strategy to use if your goal is to see tangible results in a matter of days or weeks.

But how long does it take for SEO to work?

There’s no clear-cut answer to that question because a lot of factors have to be taken into account. But a rough estimate would be about 4-6 months.

The SEO results you will get within this timeframe are mostly an increase in organic search traffic but not necessarily grabbing the top 10 spots in SERPs.

2. SEO depends on volatile algorithms

SEO might give you a better ROI, but it’s also uncertain. Though PPC relies on algorithms too, it is less unpredictable.

In 2018, Google rolled out SEO algorithm updates 3,243 times. Imagine keeping up with those.

Worst case scenario, a lot of businesses and publishers are suffering from traffic dips update after update.

It can be really hard to recover and requires a lot of work if your site is hit by these changes or penalties.

It’s not foolproof, but the only thing you can do to avoid this is to stick with search engines’ guidelines. And as much as possible, avoid questionable SEO tactics altogether.

3. SEO requires ‘expert’ content

A huge part of SEO hinges on authority and relevance. As such, it requires expert-level content for it to work.

And because SEO is cost-efficient, niches are getting more saturated, and competition is getting more cutthroat.

As a result, it sets the bar of authoritative and quality content really high.

To keep up with algorithm updates and the competition, content requires to be updated as often as it needs to keep your position intact. And it’s a never-ending battle.

Pros and Cons of PPC

Businesses earn $8 in profit for every $1.60 spent on Google Search Ads. That’s a solid ROI if you think about it.

But is PPC the right fit? What makes it a viable search marketing strategy? And what makes it good or bad for your business?

Why Choose PPC

Here are some benefits of PPC:

1. PPC delivers quick results

The main reason people use PPC over SEO is that it delivers faster results.

As long as you are following PPC best practices and meeting people’s intent, PPC can pay off in no time, without waiting for weeks.

2. PPC is adaptable

The benefits of PPC go beyond just getting quick results.

If you ever want to scale up your campaign, you can do that without worrying too much about getting into trouble.

As long as you have the money to spend on your ads, PPC campaigns are fairly flexible.

In addition, PPC allows for narrower targeting by working with various data points like demographics, location, etc. This gives you more control over your ad spend.

Not to mention, you can play with your ads and do A/B tests without any collateral damage to make sure you know what’s working and what’s not.

3. PPC is buyer-oriented

True to its nature, PPC gets more conversion because it’s just made for people who are ready or considering to buy.

According to Power Traffick, the top 3 paid advertising spots account for 46% of the clicks on the page. If your goal is to sell, no doubt that PPC is what you need.

Why NOT Choose PPC

Of course, PPC comes with a few drawbacks as well.

1. PPC is expensive

Highly saturated industries like insurance, credit, loans, and mortgage are very competitive.

Since there are a lot of you bidding on popular keywords, that means you might have to fork out more money to beat your competitors. And there’s usually no other way around it.

For instance, bidding on the keyword “insurance” on Google Ads will cost you around $50 per click on average.

Check out the top 20 most expensive keywords in Google Ads.

And if you are doing it wrong, watch out because you don’t want to end up paying more than what your product costs. Just like Dropbox paid Google Ads $400 per acquisition for their $99 product. Fail!

2. PPC often requires constant tweaking

Yes, PPC is easy to scale. But it’s in the same manner that it can bite you in the butt.

The longer you run your PPC campaigns, the less effective they become.

Imagine people seeing your ads too often. Your ads will render stale and less effective.

The only way around it is to change or tweak your ad copy and other elements on a regular basis. This can be taxing and costly, to say the least.

3. PPC needs startup costs

Like any other form of advertising, PPC requires money to make money.

While that might not be a problem for some, it is to others.

If you are a new business with zero marketing budget, then running PPC campaigns might not be the best route to begin with.

Note that some PPC campaigns really bomb at first. If you choose to do PPC, then you need to do a lot of optimizing, experimenting, and learning.

Nevertheless, prepare for the worst if you want to do it all by yourself.

PPC or SEO: Which Is Better?

I hear this question over and over again.

Again, the question is misguided. If someone offering PPC and SEO services tells you one is better over the other with no context, run fast.

There’s no way SEO is better than PPC, or vice versa. Both are great sources of traffic and effective marketing strategies.

The question worth asking is: “When do I choose SEO vs. PPC or vice versa?”

And that, my friends, is what we are going to address below.

When to Use SEO

First of all, 80% of a website’s traffic comes from search engines. And that’s primarily one of the biggest reasons businesses use SEO.

Google alone gets over 3.5 billion searches per day. A chunk of that figure is never bad at all.

Thus, SEO makes sense for a lot of reasons.

1. You want to sell websites

If you are in the website flipping business, SEO is a game-changer. It affects the valuation of each website you sell.

Higher rankings in SERPs for important keywords and a decent amount of organic traffic could translate to more dollars.

The search engine status of a website is one of the deciding factors for most buyers as well. It allows them to estimate how easy to manage your site is, how much work it needs, and how much they can profit off it, eventually.

2. You are gunning for consistent results

SEO has never been an overnight undertaking. It makes perfect sense if you are looking for long-term, consistent results.

As I mentioned, SEO results grow over time. The results you will experience 24 months from now will be a lot over 12 months from now.

If you have no regard for the future of your brand, then by all means, skip SEO.

3. You want to build an authority website

Authority or niche websites are getting more popular. If you want to be the go-to website in your industry, you need SEO to work for you.

In order for authority websites to be called as such and generate consistent traffic, you need to build a reputation around it and establish its brand. 

SEO can help you do that and dominate your niche in the long run.

4. You want your website to increase in value

As mentioned, SEO increases the value of your website.

Even if you have no intention to sell it, having a digital asset that looks good before the search engines will pay off, eventually.

A website that generates a good amount of traffic, that ranks high on search engines, has a robust backlink profile, and extraordinary content is the easiest way to attract new leads and businesses.

When to Use PPC

Let’s head over to the other side of the fence in this SEO vs. PPC argument.

So, when should you use PPC marketing?

Below are some circumstances when PPC would prove highly beneficial for an online business.

1. Your intent is to promote or sell something

Why do you want to use search engine marketing? If it’s promoting or selling something, PPC is the no-nonsense solution.

Unlike SEO, PPC does not need bomb content to stay relevant and look good in the eyes of users. And so it makes perfect sense to use paid search if you want to direct people to a sales page or squeeze page.

2. You want instant results

PPC is also a no-brainer if you want to get immediate results.

Like any other form of advertising, PPC can deliver the results you want as soon as your campaign hits the web.

This is why PPC works best with squeeze pages, product launches, affiliate marketing, and cost per acquisition marketing. Anything really that involves high-converting offers, seasonal promos, and event-centered marketing, among others.

3. You want more targeted traffic

PPC marketing is the more logical option if you want to drive more targeted traffic, that kind of traffic that homes in on conversions rather than just massive traffic.

Whatever PPC advertising platforms you will use, these platforms give advertisers the ability to play around with demographic data such as age range, gender, education level, income bracket, and even marital status. Facebook ads allow you to target people based on their hobbies. 

Overall, PPC works best over SEO when it comes to quick conversions.

4. You have a novel product

For products that have yet to disrupt the market, PPC is the best option.

Optimizing for search queries that people don’t use or haven’t heard of yet will totally fail your product.

Imagine trying to rank for terms like “self-driving car,” “home rental,” “ride-hailing,” or “4k drone” in the early 2000s.

Nobody’s searching for those keywords at the time, so SEO would have been pretty useless if Tesla, Airbnb, Uber, or DJI went that route.

If you have a new product, this is where PPC comes in handy. Social media PPC, in particular, is really good at building awareness for unrecognizable products.

5. You have a time-sensitive offer

And finally, PPC is the perfect strategy for product launches and one-off offers.

Whether you are gearing up for a crowdfunding launch or one-off events, these are time-sensitive instances that only PPC or other marketing channels can help you with.

Can PPC and SEO Work Together?

The short answer is yes. You can definitely use PPC and SEO in concert.

Using PPC and SEO together might sound more expensive, but it’s actually a good strategy because one compliments the other.

After all, these marketing channels are on the same team with the same goals — to drive traffic to your website. And if SEO and PPC can generate the desired outcome, then why restrict yourself to one option?

Even if you have a shoestring budget, you can definitely piece out an effective PPC and SEO strategy.

Here’s how you can start PPC and SEO working together:

1. Repurpose PPC Data

When running a PPC campaign, pay close attention to ad copy that does really well. You can use this to turn into an SEO-friendly content to maximize its performance in search.

As an example, use your best PPC ad copy in the meta description for a specific page.

Also, you can track down the best performing CTRs for content network ads to find the most popular topics. You can use these topics as ideas for new blog posts to generate more organic traffic.

2. Use retargeting

Ads are not getting any cheaper. By retargeting website visitors, you are making sure your ads are getting the maximum exposure they need.

For instance, a target visitor left your website without becoming a paying customer. You can use Facebook ads to convince them and try your product, sign up for a free trial, etc.

Retargeting works on most PPC advertising platforms, so take advantage of this.

3. Build awareness

Either PPC or SEO can be used for building awareness. But using both channels doubles your exposure.

If you have a new blog post published on your website, regardless if it’s information or promotion type of content, you can use PPC to target the right audience. Facebook ads are particularly effective in this case.

Whether your goal is to drive targeted traffic or build backlinks, using PPC is one of the most effective ways for your blog posts — which you know takes several hours to make — to get the exposure it deserves.

4. Use PPC data to create an SEO plan

While it’s not a new idea, it’s still worth mentioning that keyword data from PPC campaigns can be a powerful source to develop a robust SEO plan around.

PPC is just one proven and tested method to find out which keywords work and which don’t, which keywords have been searched, clicked on, and converted.

That unloads so much burden from your SEO strategy development process.

5. Rank for your competitor’s keywords

If your competitors are running Google ad campaigns, you can find the most lucrative keywords that they are bidding on. You can use those either via SEO or PPC.

SEO tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, and Moz can find these keywords pretty easily.

If you are using SEMrush, there are a couple of ways to go about spying on your competitors.

You can use features like Advertising Research and the PPC Keyword Tool to find the ads your competitor is running or the keywords they are bidding on.

In Conclusion

Choosing between SEO and PPC is a matter of understanding your business goals first.

But if you have the shekels to go all out, by all means, do PPC and SEO together. This way, you get more data to collect and analyze, learn more about your target audience, and use this to polish your marketing strategies.

That’s it for this SEO vs. PPC article. I hope you got something to think about out of it.

If you found it helpful, please share it. Got questions? I’d love to hear them in the comments.

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