Search Marketing is the process of gaining traffic and visibility from search engines through both paid (PPC) and unpaid efforts (SEO).
The basis of a good SEO effort is following a set of best practices so that your web publication will show up high in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) for relevant consumer searches. This boils down to the basics of:
At first glance this does look simple, but the major take-away is that SEO does require some meticulous attention and does take time; four to six months to begin to see fruits of your efforts. If your objective is to appear on the first page (SERP) or high up on this page; depending where you start, the nature of your competition, etc, this could take more than six months.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC), on the other hand, can generate similar results (drive traffic to your website and accelerate conversions), in a much shorter time frame – immediately! However, it is a pay-for service so you want to fully understand where, how and why you want to make your investment. Strategic organization is key so as to minimize advertising investment and optimize return.
With PPC you can literally target a specific desirable demographic (e.g. females, age 35 to 45, in Raleigh, NC). Or, you can target a general set of consumers (organic search / keywords) that are searching for your products / services through Search Networks. If you desire to target industry or consumer specific journals or articles that your target audience could be reading; the Display Network will enable this.
If you have an eCommerce site that already has traffic, you may want to target those shoppers that have viewed certain products or categories, or journeyed through your online shopping process but did not purchase. Through Remarketing you can position your ads to these shoppers over a finite period of time (e.g. 30 days) when they resume their shopping or viewing online.
PPC is not just about driving traffic and conversions, if your business needs to create a brand awareness strategy, this can be done through CPM type placements across diverse publications in the Display Network, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc.
Optimally, both are indispensable and a comprehensive business strategy should be a strategic blend of PPC and SEO.