When comparing SEO to PPC the easiest comparison is to look at how PPC has instant results & can generate visitors early in a site launch in comparison to SEO.

When comparing SEO to PPC the easiest comparison is to look at how PPC has instant results & can generate visitors early in a site launch in comparison to SEO. Similarly in terms of managing budget you can manage your budget and measure your ROI much more easily with PPC over SEO which often takes a much more long term approach (especially if you're going after generic competitive keywords) - 86% of web searchers trust SEO listings more than sponsored PPC listings AND 85% of clicks resulting from a search are on the organic links rather than the paid ads. - Although only 50% of web searchers are aware of the difference between organic and paid search results However, PPC use declined 60% between 2007 and 2010 AND more importantly 50% of people arriving at a retailers site from paid ads are more likely to buy than those who came from an organic link. In terms of selecting one method over the other then I know someone personally who runs a very successful bootstrapped ecommerce company which started on eBay and has since expanded into real stores - he now has over 100 employees & makes tens of millions in profit per year. His whole business has been generated via PPC although recently he has started doing SEO by hiring some in house SEO staff. However, ideally you should be looking at implementing both strategies. SEO and PPC are both important & if you have an PPC ad slot and are #1 on Google then you have 2 of the first few results a user clicks on & from my experience - the first 5 results take up 88.1% of all clicks[1] Statistics Used From: http://killerinfographics.submitinfographics.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/SEOvsPPC.jpg http://killerinfographics.submitinfographics.com/wp-content/... [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3766000 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3766000