The battle is on, with Pay-Per-Click in one corner and SEO in the other. Internet marketing vs. Professional SEO service providers. Who will be the winner? Only time can tell. PPC or Pay-per-Click is one of many internet marketing strategies. The website owner pays to have an advertisement or advertising banner to be listed so searchers can see them. Each user that clicks on the advertisement is taken to a landing page on the website where, supposedly, the user can then be converted into a viable customer through the landing page's call to action. Most of the webmasters opt for PPC instead of SEO, considering that they'll have a better chance of reaching customers than by hiring Professional SEO service providers to optimize their website.

PPC - Pay Per Click
Pro - More users will reach your landing page, giving them the opportunity to follow the call to action and become a viable customer.

Pro - PPC provides seemingly instantaneous results. The ad goes up and you'll see a quick increase of visitors to your website.

Big Con - Each user that clicks to the landing page costs the website owner money. This isn't so bad, right? All marketing costs money. The complication comes in when PPC cannot differentiate between those that click on purpose and those that click on accident. It doesn't matter if the user turns into a customer or leaves the website as soon as they reach it. All that counts with PPC is that a user clicks on the advertising banner. What's the return on investment (ROI) for PPC? Unfortunately, there's no statistic for overall PPC vs conversion rate.

If you have a highly competitive keyword, it's going to cost you more for the PPC banner. You also have more competition between websites. In this situation, whether you get conversions or not may come down to depending on how professional your website looks compared to others. Is it worth it? Some say yes, some say no, but all say keep an eye on that conversion rate. It's easy to end up dumping more money into PPC than you have in your monthly marketing budget - and many business owners have.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the strategy of optimizing your website for search engines. In simple terms, getting your website listed high on the search terms so searchers will see you first. Professional SEO service providers find low competition/high search keywords for use in coding and content, as well as many other things.

Pro - Although the Professional SEO service providers aren't free, the clicks and conversions are. You won't have to pay per person. You decide what you want done and you pay a set fee.

Pro - Many SEO companies suggest relative original content. If you select to update content writing to your optimization package, you not only see a higher number of return visitors searching for relevant information on your website, you may also see SEO results from the optimization.

Con - SEO is a long-term strategy. Although you'll see results, you probably won't see them for a while. If you're an impatient website owner, this could be a serious deterrent. SEO ROI The return on investment for SEO can be high, but it will take a while to see it. Any Professional SEO service providers that tell you they can give you instantaneous results are flat out lying. However, in a three-month campaign - some run for six or longer - you will spend less than a three-month PPC campaign, with longer lasting results. Once your website is optimized, it takes very little time and cost to keep it that way. An article here, a landing page there, a blog added there and you're updated. The Outcome Who wins depends on how quickly you want to be seen and how big your monthly budget is. PPC cost all depends on how competitive your keyword is, SEO cost depends on how much optimization you want to do and the company. PPC has quick results on visitors with a possibility of conversion; SEO has slower - but longer lasting - results on visitors and conversions.

Believe it or not, many Professional SEO service providers will suggest both. With a short PPC campaign, mixed with a long-term SEO campaign, you'll have the highest ROI and optimal visitor/conversion rates.