SEO vs PPC For Home Remodeling Companies – Which Is Best To Scale My Business?

SEO VS PPC For Home Remodeling Companies

SEO VS PPC for home remodeling companies is an ongoing rivalry. Some companies prefer one over another, and some use both to achieve their results.

The discussion as to which is best for home remodeling companies will always exist, but we are going to help shed some light on this digital marketing rivalry.

There are many different digital marketing channels businesses can use. These include social media, email marketing, SEO, and PPC etc. If you want to increase inbound traffic, PPC and SEO are what business owners usually opt for.

Comparing these two models is essential to understanding that they fit together nicely and can be used in different situations and provide different benefits.

What is PPC Advertising?

PPC advertising refers to Pay-Per-Click advertising. The way PPC works is that you create an advertisement, which displays at the top of Google or Bing. Google Ads is the most common type of PPC Ads because Google is the most common search engine. People are the most familiar with it.

PPC Advertising works by allowing an advertiser to bid on specific queries or keywords in Google and appear at the top of Google. How it works in more detail involves choosing a keyword to target, then bidding on the keyword and establishing a maximum bid for each keyword. This means you would set your bid at, say, $1 per click. $1 is the most you are willing to pay for a click. You also need to establish a budget of how much you would like to spend overall. If your budget is $200, you will only get 200 clicks from Google.

You can create paid search ads for Microsoft Bing and Google Ads. Google Ads has shopping ads, display ads, and local service area ads.

What is SEO?

SEO is a process of optimizing a website to rank organically in search engines. The methods and techniques used should improve the rankings in the Google Maps and organic search results.

There are 4 aspects of SEO needed to rank in Google. These are On-page SEO, Off-page SEO, Technical SEO, and Local SEO.

On-Page SEO

On-page SEO refers to the optimization of “the web page”. Everything on the target page needs to be optimized to rank well. This includes fixing the title tag, meta description, the H1, H2, and H3 tags, and the paragraph text. It also requires image optimization, fast loading times, and internal linking.

As a general rule, you will want the main keyword in the following places:

• Title Tag
• Meta Description
• H1 
• H2
• First Sentence In The First Paragraph
• Image Alt Text

Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO refers to optimizing everything “off the page”. In a nutshell, that is blogging (or content marketing) to get traffic for relevant search queries, backlink building, and social media marketing.

One of the most important aspects of SEO is getting backlinks. Backlinks are a vote of confidence in the eyes of search engines. The more “good” backlinks, the better your website will perform. In our experience, the best backlinks are guest posts and niche edits. These offer the most power, but if you get too spammy with your anchor text, you will be subjected to a penalty. Either an algorithmic penalty or a manual action.

Try to stick to natural anchors such as generic anchor text like “read more” or “website”, branded terms like “your brand name”, and URL variations.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO ensures your website runs smoothly, is easy to crawl and index, has a navigable site structure, is fast, and is mobile-friendly. The website should also be secure and have the sitemap added to Google Search Console. Additionally, it is wise to include schema or structured data on the site, and when you encounter crawl errors, you should address those as soon as possible.

Local SEO

Local SEO refers to optimizing your Google Business Profile to improve the Google Maps rankings. This entails creating or claiming a Google Business Profile. After creating the profile, you add your business name, address, phone number, and whether you are a service area business or operate out of a location. 

You should also choose a category that best matches your business. Lastly, you add photos of the business, opening hours, the services you offer, and start getting client reviews.

Being close to the client and having a large number of great reviews are key to ranking.

When Should You Expect SEO Results

You should expect your SEO results to reward you after 3-12 months. The reason for the time frame is due to the budget and the competition levels. It also depends on how good the SEO is. Enlist SEO services in Phoenix for this.

Comparison Table: SEO VS PPC For Home Remodeling Companies

Pros and Cons of PPC For Home Remodeling Companies

Pros:

Immediate Traffic And Visibility:

The biggest advantages of using PPC campaigns are the ability to generate immediate traffic and visibility in the SERPs. As soon as the campaign is created, it starts generating leads, unlike SEO, which takes time.

Highly Targeted Reach:

PPC allows for highly targeted campaigns. The ads that could be created can be area-specific as well as intent-specific. Every query you can target can be commercial, local, or navigational. It is up to you to determine where you want the traffic to come from and what the user should be searching for.

Budget Control:

PPC allows businesses to control their marketing budget by adjusting the Cost-Per-Click price and the keywords they target. Finely tuned campaigns cost less money and generate more revenue.

Trackable ROI or ROAS:

With analytics, you can easily track your ROAS. If you spend $2500 on ads over 30 days and generate $10000, you know you have a 400% Return on Ad spend.

Local Lead Gen:

With Local Service Area ads and keyword targeting, you can get targeted leads from specific areas and convert those leads into buyers. LSA ads are one of the best-kept secrets for home remodeling companies.

A/B Testing:

PPC ads allow you to do A/B testing to see which campaign works best. You then run the best-performing campaign.

Cons:

Can Get Expensive:

PPC costs can get expensive quickly. This is particularly true for campaigns that aren’t perfectly optimized.

Ongoing Management:

PPC requires ongoing management and campaign analysis. The PPC campaign should be constantly monitored and optimized for a positive ROI.

Clicks Don’t Always Mean Leads:

Clicks don’t always mean leads. The searcher may click on the ad and realize they searched the wrong query or are just browsing the internet.

Short-Term Results:

PPC offers short-term results. If you need long-term results from a marketing campaign, you may be best off with SEO.

Ad Fatigue:

Ad fatigue is when you create frequent ad campaigns, leading the searcher to get annoyed with your consistent ads. This results in a negative brand perception.

Steep Learning Curve:

PPC has a steep and expensive learning curve. The wrong campaign settings, such as broad match instead of exact match, can deplete your monthly budget in a matter of hours.

Click Fraud Or Unqualified Clicks:

Click fraud is a large problem for PPC campaigns. It also leads to wasted budget.

Pros and Cons of SEO For Home Remodeling Companies

Pros:

Long-Term Sustainable Results:

SEO provides long-term, sustainable results if you stick to white-hat seo practices.

Cost-Effective In The Long Run:

SEO is cost-effective in the long run. Actually, of all the digital marketing channels that exist, SEO provides the highest ROI. This is because you can rank for many semantically relevant queries, which can sometimes 10x the amount of page views you can get.

Builds Credibility And Trust:

SEO helps build credibility and trust. The reason for this comes down to brand awareness in the search results.

Attracts High-Intent Traffic:

With SEO, you can specifically target high-intent traffic and rank for those queries, ensuring you only get the commercial searches coming your way. 

Better User Experience:

SEO will provide a better user experience because it involves optimizing a website, improving content structure, and the ability for a user to find the information they are looking for quickly.

Works 24/7:

SEO works 24/7. You can’t turn it off.

Local SEO Brings Local Leads:

Local SEO brings local leads through Google’s organic map pack. If a user in the area, your business ranks for that search and you get local leads.

Supports Other Marketing Channels:

SEO supports other marketing channels because it improves overall brand visibility, content discovery through blog posts, and drives targeted traffic.

Cons:

Takes Time To See Results:

SEO can take time, ranging from 3 to 12 months. You need to be in it for the long haul.

Ongoing Effort Required:

SEO always requires ongoing effort. It’s not a set-and-forget tactic. You must constantly build backlinks and create blog content.

Highly Competitive:

SEO is highly competitive. Everyone is fighting for the top spot. This is why so many companies opt for PPC ads, because they get the top spot by paying for it.

Algorithm Changes Can Hurt Rankings:

Algorithm changes can hurt your SEO rankings. From Core Updates to changes in the SERPs, the dreaded HCU updates are causing havoc with businesses. All these updates can be devastating to businesses if you are hit. Sometimes you get hit, even when you did nothing wrong.

Requires Technical Knowledge:

SEO does require technical knowledge to rank in the search results.

Harder To Track ROI:

It is harder to track your ROI because you can rank for many queries that you aren’t even working on, which makes it difficult to determine which queries are driving traffic.

Content Demands Can Be High:

If you need to publish 2 blog posts per week to gain topical authority, you are going to struggle keeping up with content production and distribution on an ongoing basis.

When to Use PPC

Knowing when you should be using PPC ads to grow and build your business is the first step to a successful campaign. If the timing is wrong, you run the risk of wasting your Ad budget for no reason.

The main reason why companies use PPC is that they need leads urgently and cannot wait for SEO to work. PPC is also great at targeting and testing new locations and service offers to see if there is any demand or interest in your offering before investing in long-term SEO efforts. PPC and specifically Local Service Area Ads (LSA Ads) are great at dominating local search results. If you run a campaign with both Google Ads and Local Service Area ads, you will get maximum pay-per-click exposure for your brand.

PPC ads are also a great idea to run in highly competitive industries and for short-term promotions and seasonal campaigns such as Black Friday and Thanksgiving.

In these cases, PPC should be a no-brainer.

Note that scaling a business in a competitive market requires a multi-channel approach. Utilizing expert advertising services allows you to reach customers at every stage of the buying journey.

When to Use SEO

The best time to use SEO is when you seek long-term growth. SEO helps build brand credibility and trust with search engine users. This is because SEO is a long-term commitment. 

SEO is also great when you want to dominate local search engine results, and also when you want to lower your overall marketing costs.

An example is, if you are ranking for your primary search queries, you may not feel the need to keep that advertising campaign running.

Using PPC And SEO Together

Using PPC and SEO is a great idea. You get the best of both worlds. The strategy works incredibly well together and offers enhanced visibility in the search results, strengthening brand awareness.

Another key component of using these two strategies together is the ability to retarget clients with remarketing ads who landed on your website organically. This keeps the potential buyer in the funnel.

Another positive factor is using PPC data to help provide insight into new SEO campaigns. If you are targeting a specific keyword and are getting traction on it, it might be worthwhile to build a page and rank it for that query.

Conclusion

Even though these two methods are very different, they should be used together. With SEO and PPC, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer as to which is best and which helps your business at a certain stage. 

The rivalry of the two methods will continue, but businesses should assess their goals, budget for each campaign, and how long they would like to see results. This will lead them to identify which is best for their business.

If you need help with your marketing or would like to learn about our Digital Marketing Services, contact us today.