There is a never-ending debate over PPC versus SEO, and an equally growing divide between marketers who enjoy organic search and those who prefer paid results. Without taking any sides, here are the pros and cons of both ways of doing business.

What it may strike at a first glance is that SEO involves long-term planning whereas PPC is all about exploiting the moment and delivering cheaper clicks for higher return leads. SEO-ers spend lengthy hours analyzing long tail keywords and building insanely complicated linkwheels for a 20% return of investment, but build a strong link profile that may last for years. PPC marketers can get ROIs as high as 2000% off one campaign, but when their funding stops so do their profits.

The 'right' method is a compromise, as it often is. SEO gurus rely on (one) major search engine’s algorithms to pull in organic traffic. Should Google decide overnight that, let’s say, inbound links will no longer count and that whoever has the highest number of Twitter followers will rank first,  where would a majority of them be standing? Their organic traffic would plummet, and so would their earnings. Such a drastic change is unlikely to happen, but keep in mind that it’s only one company pulling the strings and all eggs are in the same basket.

PPC marketers, on the other hand, have a plethora of traffic platforms to choose from, so their risks are spread evenly. If Adwords and Facebook  close down overnight, a good PPC marketer would still have lots of services to choose from. And when their funding is drained they can always start back from scratch (you can even get a credit line if that’s what it takes).

You should also remember that SEO is a continuous process – you can’t simply assume that if you ranked #1 for your keyword you will stay there forever. Others are building links and will try to catch up, so you have to keep up the work.

The general truth you should keep in mind is that PPC is like billboard and TV advertising: it works immediately, it creates some buzz, raises some awareness and that’s it, if you don’t back it up by another media campaign. SEO, on the other hand, can equal sustainability and long-term growth if done correctly (of course, provided that Google, Yahoo and Bing don’t change their ranking algorithm drastically like in the above example).

PPC may be perfect for launching a new service, building up your social media fan base or getting more email subscribers. SEO, on the other hand, is what you should use for long-term development. Analyze them both, try to learn as much as you can and apply whichever technique fits in your particular scenario.