I’d like to talk to you about online marketing, which is quite possibly the most important aspect of an SEO or PPC (pay-per-click) marketing campaign. If you’re not familiar, SEO is short for “search engine optimization,” while PPC stands for “pay-per-click.” Essentially, SEO is all about optimizing your web content (i.e., your blog posts, product descriptions, and so on) for the search engines, and PPC is all about paying for relevant traffic.

While there are many platforms and tools that fall under the umbrella of “online marketing,” I’d like to focus on the specific aspects of SEO and PPC that every business needs to know.

The Difference Between SEO and PPC

As the name suggests, SEO is all about optimizing your web content for the search engines, such as Google and Bing. These are the two most widely used search engines, and they account for over 90% of all searches. Essentially, someone types a keyword or keyphrase into the search bar, and the search engine shows them a list of websites that match their search query. They can then click on a link to be taken to that specific website.

PPC is all about paying for relevant traffic. With PPC, you are paying for individual clicks on your ads. You can also target specific keywords or phrases in your ad copy to increase your chances of having someone click on your ad. However, with PPC, you are not directly contacting the customer through your marketing blog or social media accounts. Your ads are basically just an advertisement, and you need to find the right audience for that advertisement.

Why Does SEO Matter For Businesses?

If you are running a business, you need to understand the importance of SEO. According to HubSpot Blogs research, 50% of respondents said that SEO was important for their business, compared to 38% who said that content was important and just 7% who said that paid ads were important.

SEO is especially important for businesses because search engine ranking is based on a variety of factors, such as the popularity of your keywords, the quality of your content, and the amount of pages that you’ve optimized for your target keywords. If you are not doing well in the search engines, it can seriously damage your business, especially if you are located in a competitive market.

You can use HubSpot Social to track the popularity of your keywords. For example, if you want to optimize your blog posts for the phrase “best laptop for students,” you can create a campaign that will show you the popularity of this keyword over time.