Explanation and Details

The top search engines do not want to cheat their users by providing only paid results. Search engines earn their trust, and hence their traffic and subsequent revenues, by attempting to provide objective information, and advertising is inherently biased. Some web searchers might seek out a company that pays for advertisement, in the belief that the most professional, reputable companies selling, say, diabetes testing kits or high-tech shipping cases should run ads online. However, many niche marketers and even established corporations do not employ an adequate paid-placement strategy. Eventually, searchers would discover this information deficit and move on to another search engine, like Google, that is more objective and informative and less advertising-based. Therefore, top search engines usually set aside paid results in "sponsored links" or other designated areas so customers don't feel that the information they get is provided solely on the basis of who bids the highest.

This means that non-paid listings are and will remain central, and the only way to prevail in those listings is through SEO.

A major reason that SEO should be your first priority is that it is more cost-effective than PPC. The labor costs of setting up and managing a PPC campaign are usually the same or even more than the labor costs of SEO, but then there are the continuous click charges you pay after set-up.

Another advantage of SEO over PPC is stability: PPC positions continuously change according to your competitors' bidding tactics, while SEO is much more stable (when done right). Contrary to popular belief (even among some SEM firms), the linguistic parts of the top search engines' ranking algorithms have not changed much in the last few years, and they will not change in ways that substantially affect optimum SEO tactics. Non-linguistic and off-page components of the algorithms, such as the quantity and quality of incoming links, do change, but these parts are not influenced by SEO, and they are applied to ranks that are first determined (within nano-seconds) by the on-page language. Numerous case histories (some published by DISC) show that SEO done right endures for years without ongoing tweaking - or the need for retainer fees. (See our SEO Myths page for more about this topic.) PPC, on the other hand, requires ongoing management to ensure that your advertisements are as prominent as positive ROI allows, especially if your business is in a competitive field that has gravitated to PPC.

Finally, "Click Fraud" is a growing problem that further reduces PPC's ROI relative to SEO. Click fraud is defined (per DISC's expert friend and former employee, Jessie Stricchiola) as "the practice of clicking on a text advertisement served by a search engine for the sole purpose of forcing the advertiser to pay for the click." (For a good overview of the problem, check out Jesse's article at http://searchenginewatch.com/searchday/article.php/3387581; she has been quoted in countless articles.) Using manual clicks or, more damaging, software that simulates human clicks from different IP addresses around the world, your competitors can rapidly rack up your click charges. Also, web publishers that display your PPC ads through contextual advertising can earn revenue by implementing fraudulent clicks. Google and Yahoo can detect some of this fraud, and increasingly they are crediting PPC advertisers for suspected fraud, but there are ways to evade this detection.

Click fraud is a major threat to the whole search engine industry, as well as to individual advertisers. Fortunately, SEO is immune to this threat - because the absence of click charges eliminates any incentives or rewards for potential culprits.

For all the reasons described above, SEO is your first priority; PPC is second.