If you’ve followed this site with much regularity, you’ve probably heard about Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). What I don’t think we’ve done much is talk about the relationship between the two.

Lucky for us, Dr. Ralph Wilson started it for us with the short article For a New Site, PPC First, Then SEO:

…one should plan on using both Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). By using PPC first, you can get traffic quickly, test the effectiveness of your website, and get an idea of its conversion rates. Once you are satisfied with the conversion rate of the website, you then reduce marketing costs by working on SEO.

He’s right…to a point. My personal opinion is that you should be considering SEO from the very beginning. It effects the design and marketing for your site.

I’ve heard some say that first you design a site, then you market it, then you respond to those who contact you. This model is perfect for a PPC-way of thinking (and what I think Dr. Wilson is proposing). PPC is effective (assuming good keyword purchasing) at promoting any kind of site, regardless of design.

Personally, I promote the concept of thinking through marketing first, then design with marketing (SEO) in mind, then respond to those contacting you. In this case, I’m including such things as understanding your audience’s needs, interests, and desires. It’s a lot of the research-end of marketing. But those results permeate into all other decisions.

When you design the site, design with good SEO principles.

So where does PPC fit in? The reality is a well-designed site using SEO will not rank well quickly. It just takes time. That’s pretty much how it works (there is one white-hat shortcut that speeds it up though: linked from high page-ranked sites). PPC is perfect for getting high rankings quickly until the SEO takes over (which is Dr. Wilson’s point). However, and I don’t think he meant to communicate this, SEO should be considered from the beginning, not an after-thought.

[tags]seo, ppc, marketing, design, website design, internet marketing[/tags]