Web traffic is an essential component of having an effective Internet presence. There are currently two efficient options that will drive traffic to a website if they are carried out correctly. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay-per-click (PPC) are the leading tools for helping a website gain traffic through search engines. SEO is a free mechanism to organically move a website up the search engine's rankings by using SEO best practices for the given search engine's algorithm. PPC is when a website sponsors a results page and pays a fee (price depends on competition for specific keywords) only when a user clicks on the link.
SEO
SEO is advantageous to a creative mind that can think outside the box when doing SEO best practices, such as original and content rich blogs and social media marketing ideas that will boost the authority of the website. It is crucial to be patient throughout the SEO process because growing naturally can take quite some time. It may take months to grow traffic the way desired. Aside from the persistently hard work, SEO is free to do which is fantastic for small businesses on a budget that will not be able to afford paid advertising. SEO is useful when the competition is low for search engine results pages (SERPs). With competition low that usually means the keywords related to the website's industry are not dominated by authority sites like big brands who demand a lot of online attention.
PPC
PPC harnesses qualities for analytical mindsets that enjoy finding patterns within different searches and keywords. This is much faster and requires less patience than working with SEO. PPC can be short term risk taking, as far as which keywords are decided to be used, since it may end up costing a large chunk of change. It's important to make the price worth it with effective keywords so clicks turn into profit. PPC is not free like SEO, but can be used effectively for as little as $5-$10/day. The cost per click (CPC) is determined by the demand of the specific key words. They can be a few cents or more than $28 per click for search terms such as "auto insurance." With Google Penguin just being released, many websites are scrambling to recover their rankings that were diminished due to this update. PPC, however, is not affected by algorithm updates, which relieves a lot of the stresses that SEO enthusiasts must endure. PPC is a strong choice when the website's industry search results are clogged with huge brands and other authority sites that have been around for many years that make it nearly impossible to have a successful SEO campaign. PPC can give the website a chance to shine even with authority sites ruling the SERPs.
This is not to say that both tools can't be used at the same time. If the time and budget are at your disposal, using both tools at once can be very powerful to utilize all of what search engines have to offer, thus increasing web traffic by that much more. After knowing your goals and resources, what path to increase web traffic is best for your website?