Comparing the Return on Investment of Search Engine Optimization and Pay-Per-Click Marketing

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1MxsoVDk-1XB2S3C7tg0t5WjOZQwno8za&usp=drive_fs

With the introduction of the Internet, new opportunities arose for companies and customers to interact in a more quick and efficient manner. With this introduction came search engines such as Google and Bing. When performing a search on a search engine the user will be presented with two different types of links; inorganic links, also called Pay-Per-Click ads which will be at the top of the page, followed by organic links which will be listed after. To improve the page rank of organic links, a company can use a method called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This study seeks to get an understanding of the return on investment (ROI) for the two different methods based on different timelines. The study will include five different companies from five different industries to identify common trends and patterns. It seeks to develop a forecasting model for both PPC marketing (hereafter referred to as PPC) and SEO for the companies, and what a projected break-even point would be for the two strategies. The model used in this analysis is based on industry benchmarks, Google Ads Forecast and website analytics tools in order to get relevant data for each company and industry. Getting a better understanding of the ROI can be crucial for a company when planning for the future. For successful SEO campaigns, the projected break-even point of SEO and PPC was between 15 and 30 months and this occurred when the goal time for SEO was between 9 and 15 months. In general the projected break-even point for the two strategies depended on how fast a company successfully could implement their SEO combined with the estimated traffic increase. A faster implementation or a higher traffic increase potential from SEO would mean a faster break-even point. The authors note that the model used in this study is based on limitations and assumptions, which is why it needs to be developed in order to be considered an accurate forecast. However, it does give an insight of the factors affecting the ROI of SEO and what a company can do to improve it.