Last week I was consulting on search engine marketing efforts. After a brief audit of paid and organic marketing, it became clear that my client is using pay per click (PPC) to drive traffic to their home page. They thought that by buying clicks to home page they will improve their search engine ranking. My next step was to go back to basics and explain the difference between PPC and SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

A couple of hour later, the SEM picture was clear. We had SEM strategy, goals, and targets for PPC and SEO separately. The client understood what the final result will be and expectations from each marketing channel.

When choosing between PPC and SEO, it is important to understand the differences. Each is used for different purpose, has different expectations, implementation, and tracking. I do recommend to implement both. However, if you have to choose between the two, consider the following.

Adwords Editor - Your Secret Weapon

If you manage your own Adwords campaigns, you are familiar with Adwords website. If you are a seasoned Adwords manager, you also know about Adwords secret weapon - Adwords Editor. If you are familiar with this free Google software application, check out more PPC advice articles. If you have not used Adwords Editor, listen up - Adwords Editor will change your life and make the management of your advertising campaigns quite enjoyable. It is one of the most beneficial Google Adwords tools available.

Adwords Editor Saves you Time and Gives you Stats

In a nutshell, Adwords Editor is a free Google application for managing your Google Adwords account. Regardless of the size of your account, you can save time if you use Google Adwords Editor to update your campaigns, ad groups, ads and/or keywords, and then upload your changes to your Adwords account.

PPC Advertising stands for pay-per-click advertising. It is simply online marketing where advertisers pay only when their ads get clicked. In other words, as an advertiser, you are paying for the traffic to your website through an advertising campaign. Usually, you select keywords that are relevant to your business or website, sign up with PPC provider (like Google), and create ads relevant to your keywords and your website. When someone searches for a keyword you selected, your ad comes up and if it is compelling enough, that someone clicks on it and goes to your website. You pay for that click.

PPC advertising is very much different from newspaper, radio, magazine advertisement. With PPC campaign you can target your audience much better. And you are putting your ad in front of the very people who are looking for a service like you provide; they are more likely to become your customer. There is also much better and faster tracking of your success if you are serious about your return on investment. And most importantly, it is a lot cheaper for you if you do it right.