PPC vs. Local SEO: Which Should Your Local Business Invest In?

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Comparing PPC and Local SEO for Small Local Businesses.

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Are you having trouble getting the word out about a fresh new venture? Does it seem like you always fall short of reaching your target market? Many business entrepreneurs struggle to find the optimal method of finding new customers.

Of course, without customers, you can’t have a business. So, it’s essential for business owners to have a marketing plan out of the gate that you know will drive traffic to your awesome product or service.

Yet, it is challenging to balance a marketing effort’s costs, upkeep, and outcomes. However, digital marketing for local businesses could help resolve this issue. One of two marketing tactics will resolve this issue. It could be through search engine optimization, SEO, or PPC campaigns.

One can invest in PPC or Local SEO to help gain more customers.

The Basics of Local SEO

Search engine optimization or SEO improves a website’s presence and visibility to rank and appear higher in search engines and receive more lead generation. Consumers flock to search engines such as Google for information and content, just as one does when looking for a new marketing term or what is the latest item on the market.

Through digital marketing for local businesses and with the use of Local SEO, you can increase the likelihood that the target group will reach the company when they conduct a web search. This search gets aided by the terms related to the products offered or services when one invests in local search engine optimization.

The results placement on the search engine results page is not random. Every search engine needs to consider several ranking criteria that impact a web page’s appearance in the results. An SEO strategy aims to generate web pages and content compatible with the search engine’s ranking parameters.

The Basics of PPC for Local Businesses

PPC, also known as pay-per-click promotion, is search engine marketing or SEM. A company pays a publication from companies like Google or Facebook for every click on an ad displayed on a search engine.

Businesses can only get charged when customers interact with their advertisements under this arrangement. Using PPC advertisements, a business establishment can entice customers interested in the products or services offered and ready to consume such offers.

PPC advertisements always get displayed alongside search engine results. Several businesses use this search advertising to promote special campaigns with a set start and finish date, like product launches. Another option in digital marketing for local companies is to sell their brand names as part of their entire marketing strategy. This strategy most commonly gets connected with search engines, where advertisers bid on words related to their target customers.

The industry often determines the cost of pay-per-click advertisements and the search volume of the keywords the business is targeting. Even if the company may not have enough online visibility to rank the website organically on search engines, PPC advertising can help the industry compete effectively in a saturated market and swiftly get in front of the targeted customers.

A Comprehensive Comparison Between Local SEO and PPC

SEO is more beneficial for local searches and can increase the business’ online visibility for a longer period. Pay-per-click or PPC, on the contrary, is an acquisition method that necessitates the expenditure of advertising funds to place the content in front of a targeted audience when they look for relevant keywords on the internet.

PPC vs. Local SEO

The question is whether to invest in PPC or Local SEO. In reality, it is dependent on the situation. In the same sense, there are a variety of scenarios in which SEO is preferable over PPC, and the vice is true.

Businesses can achieve better results with pay-per-click or PPC advertising in situations where they require immediate results:

  • When the product or service is completely new or revolutionary.
  • When they are endorsing a time-sensitive proposition, such as a blowout sale.
  • When they want to lead the target market to a sales or landing page on their website.

Business owners who use Local SEO can obtain good performance in situations where their marketing budgets are limited to:

  • When they want to establish brand authority.
  • Whenever wanting to achieve a maximum long-term return on investment or ROI.
  • Whenever they want to produce content that reaches customers at various stages of the purchasing process.

PPC Pros and Cons

  • PPC advertisements show the above organic search results. Whenever conducting a Pay-Per-Click campaign for a certain keyword, the website will appear at the top of the search engine results page.
  • PPC helps to target a specific market with accuracy. When creating a PPC campaign, one can choose who to target with the advertisements.
  • A/B tests on a PPC ad can get completed quickly. With a PPC campaign, businesses may test two different ads simultaneously.
  • Profit margins are lower. The client acquisition expenses, or CAC, would continue to rise without a consequent rise in the price of products and services offered.
  • After a while, PPC advertisements become monotonous. Because of the rules established by ad platforms, businesses have limited influence over paid advertising.

Local SEO Pros and Cons

  • SEO strategies target different funnel stages. SEO allows businesses to generate multiple types of content to address each market group, which is a huge advantage.
  • It is more stable to find information through SEO. For as long as the website is optimized after it has achieved Google ranking, businesses can begin to prepare for and expect free web traffic.
  • Increased brand authority is achieved through organic listings. Appearing on search results pages for relevant keywords helps establish confidence and brand recognition with the target audience and increases sales.
  • Google’s algorithm for ranking pages changes frequently. With these developments, businesses will need to keep a close check on the marketing approach and the success of the organic campaigns.
  • Optimizing the website often is required.
  • A high level of competence and knowledge is required.

Results

How long does it take to see results? It takes time for SEO to produce results. If the webpage or domain is entirely new, it is doubtful that the company will see immediate benefits from SEO. For the simple reason that various criteria influence how Google ranks websites, many of which will not get determined within the initial few weeks or months of a website’s introduction.

PPC, on the other hand, provides more immediate effects. Depending on the initiative, it can only take hours to see outcomes from a PPC campaign. However, immediate effects are rare because it takes time to optimize a PPC campaign.

Should Your Local Business Invest in PPC or Local SEO?

Breaking Down the Statistics for PPC vs Local SEO for Small Local Businesses.

Below are statistics of digital marketing for local businesses when they use and invest in PPC or Local SEO.

PPC

  • The Google Display Network covers 90 percent of all Internet users globally.
  • Spending on search advertising reached $144.8 billion in 2021, up from $58 billion in 2020.
  • The insurance industry has a significant monthly average of $18.57 cost per click or CPC in Google Ads search advertising.
  • The electronics business has the lowest cost per click at 77 cents in Google Ads search advertising.
  • A click-through rate of 1.1 percent is the average for Facebook ads among all sectors.

Local SEO

  • Google accounts for more than 92.47 percent of it in terms of global online traffic.
  • Google generates zero traffic for 90.63 percent of all internet material, with only 0.21 percent receiving more than 1000 views per month.
  • In 2020, organic links clicked accounted for 35.18 percent of all Google searches conducted through a browser.
  • Most website pages accounting for 99.2 percent, have fewer than 100 backlinks.
  • Google has 2 trillion searches and more in a year, or 5.6 billion searches daily.
  • SEO is something that 64 percent of marketers’ investments.

How Large is the Budget?

Businesses with a large budget may invest in PPC and Local SEO. If a company has a medium-sized budget, they must consider initially investing in PPC or Local SEO and then gradually transition to solely investing in Local SEO. Clients with a limited budget should invest in PPC for faster results.

PPC advertisements are pricey. Businesses cannot execute a PPC campaign if they do not have the necessary funds. Every link that the audience clicks requires payment, which means that if the budget runs out, the traffic will also be cut short. PPC advertising might also become much more expensive in a highly competitive sector.

In the long term, SEO is less expensive. When businesses produce content that ranks well and generates traffic to a website, they no longer need money on advertising to get the target market to view it repeatedly. Unlike a PPC campaign, when these customers opt to click on the link, there is no charge to the business.

Conclusion

You should assess digital marketing for local businesses regularly. Investing in PPC or Local SEO depending on your business and needs can help you grow your audience and customer base. With everything said about PPC vs. Local SEO, one can arrive at the best possible solution for their business.

Do you need help figuring out if you should invest in PPC or Local SEO? Or, maybe you need help implementing a PPC or Local SEO strategy? Contact Bauertech today to get started growing your business through digital marketing!

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