Pay Per Click advertising, also known as PPC or paid search advertising, has been one of the top choices of marketers to reach their audience for years. However, this once big time game changer is now slowly being retired to the bench…for social marketers anyway. A recent survey has shown that social marketers are more likely to use SEO than PPC when developing their marketing strategies.

So why SEO over PPC?

PPC advertising is what we like to call quick fix advertising. It drives a spike to your web traffic and is a great way to attract new customers.

PPC advertising is great but can be highly effective when integrated into the overall marketing strategy. If PPC is used properly with targeted ads, keywords, landing pages, and continued use of A/B testing, this can be a great short-term solution for your business needs.

However, businesses also need to think about their long-term strategy, and that’s where SEO wins out everytime. SEO allows for website sustainability and, when integrated with social media, SEO allows for increased brand awareness. SEO and social media help brands capitalize on their influencers. Together, SEO and social media work together like peanut butter and jelly; your online marketing plan should not have one without the other.

A properly implemented SEO strategy helps increase brand awareness and drives traffic to the site and the brand’s social platforms, and likewise a strong social media presence can strengthen one’s SEO strategy and search engine rankings by increasing brand awareness and engagement – and most importantly, relevancy to the online industry.

When quality content is created the overall consumer experience is enhanced socially and you will see a rise in your real-time search results.

As we’ve discussed in previous posts, the key to gaining top search engine rankings through SEO is about making your website relevant to those terms. Social media helps to increase your brand’s relevancy on search engines. In short, SEO and socially directed business goals will be giving consumers what they really want: authentic conversations with brands they are interested in.