5 Reasons Local Businesses Prefer PPC Over SEO
1) Speed Of Results
As a small business owner there is probably nothing more important than seeing results quickly from their marketing dollars.
With SEO (or most any form of marketing) there is a delay from when the marketing dollars are spent and the results (calls and customers) are generated.
With PPC, within hours of starting (or updating) their campaign the results are already coming in.
Why wait months for an elusive, always shifting and non-guarenteed results with SEO when you can deliver almost instant results with PPC.
2) You Have 100% Control
(And A Fully Optimized Marketing Funnel)
With SEO you can “attempt” to rank for specific keywords. Then you are stuck with the description Google uses for your listing. And then it goes to an SEO (but not conversion) optimized page or even worse your home page.
Typical SEO traffic to leads conversion rates of 3 to 5% are the norm.
Its the classic “I’m getting you the traffic but its not converting into leads/customers/cash flow” for your client that is the agony of almost every local SEO provider.
With PPC you have complete control over everything to optimize and maximize results.
The exact keywords to bid on, the perfect ad copy to show those people, the perfect landing page to send them to that will maximize conversion rates and the call tracking number identifying every call that comes from the campaign.
Typical PPC traffic to leads conversion rates of 10% to 50% are the norm.
Yes, anywhere from 300% to 1000% times better results compared to SEO traffic.
3) Buyer’s Click Ads (Not Organic Results)
If they have been in business for any length of time, they will have had A LOT of experience with the “looky-loos”.
Those people who call their phone or come into their location with no real intention of doing business with them.
The Looky-Loos waste their time and waste their marketing dollars. In an ideal world a business owner ONLY wants buyers to contact them.
Wordstream did a detailed analysis of people who click the Adwords Ads and those that click the Organic results and what they found…
BUYERS click the ads 64.6% of the time and the organic results 35.4% of the time.
This makes sense. Google keeps giving more and more space above the fold to the ads (currently 2/3rds of page people first see are ads). And they are giving advertisers more and more ways to make your ad stand out and be clicked on.
Plus, when combined with #2 above (a perfectly tailored ad for what the buyer is looking for), a well written and targeted ad has become the bright light that attracts the clicks… not the organic results.
For the business owner, that means even if they have great organic ranking results, they are missing out on A LOT of customers if they are not also doing PPC.
4) The BIG Money in Non-Location Keywords
If you have a DUI Attorney as a prospect in Dallas, TX some keywords that would come up if doing an SEO analysis would be:
dui attorney dallas tx
dui attorney fees dallas
best dui attorney dallas
Notice, they all have the location in the keyword (or geo-modifier if we want to be technical).
But A LOT of people search without putting the location in the search term. For example:
dui attorney
dui attorney fees
best dui attorney
And in the world of SEO it is VERY difficult (almost impossible) to show up for those non-local keywords.
However, in the world of PPC it is very simple to show up for any and all of them.
One of the settings within Adwords is location targeting.
You can target by cities (everybody in Dallas, TX), zip codes (everybody in the zip codes 75204 and 75205) or even a set radius around their location (everybody within a 10 mile radius of the business).
That means if they are not doing PPC, they are missing out on the bigger opportunity of all the traffic from the non-geo-modified keywords.
OK, with…
#1 we get them fast results.
#2 we give them highly optimized results.
#3 we got them more of the buyers.
#4 we got them a lot more traffic they could never get before.
And finally, that means with #5…
5) Measurable & Significant ROI
One of the easiest things to sell, and best ways to keep a client long-term, is ROI.
However with most forms of online marketing (especially SEO) figuring out an ROI is not only very difficult but many times impossible.
That means you you are left relying on “trust” that it is working and is a good investment for them.
With PPC it is easy to measure their ROI because, in #2 above, you have complete control over the entire process.
You target the right keywords, with optimized campaigns and ad copy, bidding the right amount, going to optimized landing pages and tracking every call (lead).
I’m not saying not to use SEO for your web marketing. Definitely SEO your site, but use PPC also.