When choosing the best methods for marketing a web site, there eventually comes a time when one must decide whether to devote one’s time and energy to SEO methods or to opt for the more time-tested method of pay-per-click.  SEO is currently the hotter way, but concerns about ethics and tactics lead some to shy away.  Pay-per-click is more straightforward and has more withstood the test of time, but is seen by some as behind the times.  Whatever way one decides to go, you should first be aware of the pros and cons of each.

Search Engine Optimisation, setting up your site to garner a higher placement on search engines, is seen as the more natural and credible approach.  What better way to get traffic than to simply try to make sure the site shows up at the top of most search results pages?  There is no selling, no strong-arming, no pushing – just a searcher and her engine.  But some web sites owners dislike the tactics it takes to get to the top, citing what they term sneaky and unethical practices like backlinks and forum spam.

Another downside of SEO is that it takes energy and time.  Link building, content writing containing keywords, and establishing a web presence is the result of many hours of work.  Even though some site owners opt to use Search Engine Optimisation services to build links and fill forums (practices also frowned up by the PPC proponents), it may still take weeks or even months before a web site rises on the search results pages, and then requires constant maintenance to ensure it stays there.

Pay-per-click, on the other hand, is fairly straightforward.  It more resembles traditional advertising and as such seems more manageable and easy to understand for many.  Pay-per-click advertising is more a question of money than time, and gains almost immediate results.

When the dust settles, however, it’s SEO which drives more than 75% of all search traffic.  While PPC can be more easily planned and managed, for the time being it seems to that SEO, with all its ambiguity and hard work, obtains in the best results.