When it comes to improving search engine visibility, modern companies have two options. They can spend money on pay-per-click (PPC) ads, or put their digital marketing budgets towards search engine optimization ( Guide to SEO ). This begs the question: which solution is the best?

PPC ads are a form of digital marketing that involves delivering sponsored ads to the top of Google's search engine results pages (SERPs). It involves developing a keyword strategy, then bidding on the keywords that are most relevant to a company's target audience. Each time someone clicks on a PPC ad, the company will be charged.

PPC ads can be targeted to specific intended audiences, and they provide quick results. Google and other major search engines also provide PPC ad sponsors with detailed analytics to help them better understand how their ads are performing. In the short term, PPC ads provide a high ROI and plenty of control over performance, so they're good for promoting time-sensitive content.

Search Engine Optimization with PPC ads is that they tend to be quite expensive, so companies will need bigger advertising budgets, especially if they want to target competitive keywords. PPC ad campaigns also require a good deal of maintenance, and they tend to grow less effective over time. They're not the best form of long-term digital advertising.

Optimization is a way to boost organic visibility. Brand advertising experts recommend it as a means of increasing credibility with consumers, as well. An optimized website will send out all the right signals to search engine algorithms, which will then rank the page higher in the SERPs as a result.

Optimization provides a more impressive long-term ROI than PPC ads. Once the site has been optimized and content has been created, those changes are there to stay. It requires little maintenance to continue ranking high in the SERPs and generating consistent, sustainable traffic.