Choosing between SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and a PPC (Pay per Click) as a part of your business strategy is hard. Here is a basic understanding of what each does for your business or site should you choose to use e-commerce to expand your business.
How crucial are they?
When you go for SEO, the right keywords typed in by the users will show your site listing at the top of a standard SERPS (Search Engine Results Page) plus you don’t need to pay for these listings whenever the link is clicked by a user as is in the case of using PPC as the name implies.
Using PPC will help you get the listing of your site as a sponsored result on the SERPS and will be highlighted to make it evidently known. If there are a lot of companies dealing in the same field in business and using PPC, their results will be listed above the SEO results. In case of fewer companies using PPC, the results will be listed on the right hand corner of the SERPS (again mentioning that these are sponsored results and will be highlighted).
What is the traffic potential of each
 One of the things now to consider is that this cannot become a part of your target marketing strategy as the search engine is used worldwide by every other person. What generally happens is that users tend to click on SEO results more often than the PPC results. Though not scientifically proven and established as a fact, this is something that the general studies have shown. Herein lies your traffic potential. Getting a paid listing is easily done, but the real challenge is the continuous effort required to manage it once this done. The listings under SEO tend to create more traffic for every phrase that is similar when going through search results.
Creating PPC traffic will definitely cost you more as the per click thing is in every way executed in a literal sense. Search engines like Google charge unimaginable amounts per click depending upon the market and competition faced by your company (or business). They may charge as low as 5 cents also but the range goes up to $20 per click. This is something that huge businesses have a luxury to go forward without having to worry about the money spent if this actually brings in profits. Small businesses that still need to create a mark for themselves should not opt for this in the very beginning.
Your SEO traffic will not incur any cost to your business as it is absolutely free. Though, you save on this cost you may need to spend on improving the design of your website, better your HTML code and build awareness about your site among your targeted customers to increase traffic.
Now you may decide whether you want to go for PPC or SEO traffic creation for your business keeping in mind what is in your best interest.
