Even though pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns can have enormous benefits, I am surprised about the number of advertising dollars spent on PPC when search engine optimization (SEO) is much cheaper and can bring forth a significantly higher return on investment. Are people more comfortable with PPC advertising because they can manage this themselves without help from a third party and can easily track the ROI? Or is organic SEO less expensive than it actually should be?

SEO, or Zoekmachine Optimalisatie as they call it in Dutch, demands to analyze your web site to find out which changes are necessary to achieve the desired results. In almost all cases this asks for changes in code and/or script and sometimes even radical modifications to the web site. Content must be rewritten for the benefit of search engines, otherwise SEO will be largely ineffective. For some companies, or marketing departments this is just too much change, especially if they have spent so much time, effort and money to get their web site as it is.


And lets face it, PPC is so easy to set up and manage and most of all: you get instant results. To stay on top, it simply requires more money. SEO asks for a long term commitment and a great deal of trust in the SEO company you have hired. Many factors influence your ranking in search engines and it requires patience to achieve the desired results and continues maintenance to stay on top.