SEO vs. PPC in Dubai: What’s the Best for Your Business?

To make your business succeed, you will need some help from digital marketing. As you probably know, digital marketing is one of the best ways to promote, showcase, and position your brand at the top of the Dubai business scene.

However, there are some essential strategies we can find in digital marketing such as SEO and PPC. SEO and PPC are effective tactics that can make a real difference to your business, but only when you know how and when to use these two.

What’s better – SEO or PPC, and when should you use each of them, find out in this article!

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most effective digital marketing strategies. We can say that SEO is essential, but let’s break down why this is the case.

When users search for something online, search engines will probably be their first stop. After the user types a question or keywords, it will get results on SERP (Search Engine Results Pages).

This matching of the user’s intent with your optimized website is the key to SEO, and here lies your online visibility and recognition. The reason why many users click on the first results on the SERP is because they know that search engines mark them as trustworthy resources that match your intent.

Also, we need to mention that SEO is a complex strategy, and spamming your content with too many keywords won’t get you anywhere. You can’t pretend with search engines. That’s why we say that SEO is complex, and it has its structure made out of different components that you need to cover to get results.

There are two types of SEO as well – on-page and off-page optimization. On-page SEO refers to actions you can do ON your website to improve rankings, while off-page SEO is all about improving the website’s functionalities to get better results. Link-building is also one of the off-page SEO strategies.

Main SEO advantages:

• Long-term investment – If you want a digital marketing strategy that can work for you in the long run, Dubai SEO should be your choice.
• More organic traffic – With well-done SEO, you can have an increased amount of organic traffic (users that visit your website via search engines)
• SEO builds over time – As Dubai SEO builds over time, your credibility on the search engine will increase gradually.
• One-way solution for growth – SEO can work for you if you set up things right in the beginning, allowing you to grow more and more over time.

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Potential SEO disadvantages:

• High competition – You and your competitor can use the same keywords for ranking, leading to bigger SEO competition.
• You won’t see results immediately – Often it will take time to see the first results of your SEO efforts.
• SEO is changing – To succeed with SEO in the long run you will need to adjust your strategies to constant search engine algorithms change.
• You will need to take time with SEO – It will take some time until you figure out what type of SEO content can work for your website which many businesses can find time-consuming.

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What is Pay-Per-Click (PPC)?

Pay-per-click (PPC) is another effective digital marketing strategy that many businesses in Dubai choose to help them with ranking.

So, PPC works this way: when users search for some term, or a keyword, and you run your PPC campaign for that keyword, your website will be likely shown in the SERP. Only if the users click on your website, you will pay.

This is one of the main differences between SEO and PPC  - when you show up in the SERP, you will pay for every user’s click. Also, because PPC is a paid type of advertising, besides your link you will have a ‘Sponsored’ tag that will indicate that you’ve sponsored your link.

So, if you have a budget to sponsor your website, and the first place on the SERP is guaranteed then isn’t PPC better than SEO? Well, things don’t work like that. Like we had in the SEO case, PPC also has a high competitive rate, because your competition can try to rank for the same keywords as you.

To win over this digital space, you will need to find a way to position your business first. With Dubai PPC, we also have a bidding process, and higher success outcome if you invest more in your PPC campaign. Dubai PPC is effective indeed, but it can be budget-consuming if you don’t structure your landing page to convert.

Advantages of PPC:

• Targeting the right audience – PPC is very specific, so you can always reach the right audience with your PPC campaigns.
• You will be on the top of SERPs – Even if other websites are organically first on SERPs, your website will be above them.
• Results are immediate – Unlike SEO, PPC will give you quick results.

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Potential disadvantages of PPC:

• PPC can be expensive – Despite that PPC is a precise and aggressive approach, it can be expensive if you use it as a long-term digital marketing strategy.
• The real results may fail – If you generate many clicks, that doesn’t necessarily have to mean that you will make the conversion after users land on your website.
• You are there as long as you pay – You will be visible, and you will be on the top of the SERPs, but that will end after you stop paying for your PPC campaign.

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SEO vs PPC - What to choose?

When you need to choose between SEO vs PPC, it's important to keep their main features in mind. First, you will need to follow up on a few things:

• What are your long-term, as well as short-term goals
• What is your budget
• How saturated is your competition
• For which keywords do you want to rank

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Once you have your answers, you're closer to making your decision - SEO or PPC. If you have time to build your credibility in the search engines, we recommend you go for SEO! With SEO, there's less pressure and you can build your success brick by brick.

But if you want to take a more aggressive approach and see results quickly, PPC is for you. Speaking of budget, SEO isn't cheap of course, but in the long run, it can be budget-friendly, unlike PPC which can eat up the budget. There's also your competition, the keywords, and the content you want to optimize.

So if you take all these factors into consideration, you can make your decision in this battle between SEO and PPC.

The best answer is to always go for SEO, but try PPC from time to time to see how you perform. Remember that search engine algorithms change frequently, so always stay up to date to keep your website healthy and successful.