SEO or PPC – What Should a Roofing Company Do First?

When it comes to your roofing company’s digital marketing campaign, you want something that will work quickly and remain cost-efficient. It’s not surprising that often, the debate between SEO and PPC usually pops up pretty early in your discussions.

Both SEO and PPC are great methods for marketing, but how do you know which is the best or which you should do first?

In this guide, we’ll talk about SEO and PPC for your roofing company and how to choose your priority.

Search Engine Optimization Benefits for Roofing Services

Although Google and other search engines are constantly making changes to their ranking algorithms, Search Engine Optimization is still beneficial for your roofing company.

With the best SEO for roofing companies, you have a higher possibility of ranking on the first page of organic search results. You will be able to generate quality and consistent leads for your roofing company. What’s more, users are more likely to trust organic search listings over paid advertisements and listings. This helps give your brand reputation a little boost and can improve your conversion rate.

Pay Per Click Benefits

PPC ads offer some great opportunities that SEO does not. With PPC ads, your advertisement will be shown at the very top of the search results, even before organic rankings.

With PPC, you can generate more leads and increase traffic overnight. You’ll see results immediately and quickly see more business. Unlike SEO, PPC is not affected by the regular changes and updates made by Google, so you don’t have to worry about being penalized for a change you didn’t know about.

You’ll also be able to reach a more specific and targeted audience as you can control who you want your PPC ads to be visible to.

SEO vs PPC For Roofing Companies

As SEO and PPC are the two most commonly used digital marketing methods, you’ll often see companies tossing up between both of them. As a roofing company, you want to know which is the better choice and which one you should implement first. Here are some factors to consider:

Focus on SEO First If:

You’re Seeking a Long Term Strategy

SEO is a long-term marketing plan for your roofing business. With SEO, you focus on creating quality content and links that will help rank your roofing website higher up in organic search results.

Once you’re able to rank well on the search results, you’ll be able to tone down your local SEO efforts a notch and just focus on maintaining those rankings.

Overall, if you’re looking for a long term marketing strategy, then roofing SEO is the one to prioritize. SEO requires time and commitment so it’s not something you should plan on working on for just a couple of months. In fact, it can take several weeks and sometimes months before you see any changes or big results.

For SEO, you should have a decent amount of organic traffic already. Perhaps you’re not on the first page of results, but if you’re pretty close and rank high for specific keywords, then SEO is a great way to climb the ranks and show even higher. It’s also ideal for improving organic leads and creating more brand awareness.

Your Company Already Has a Presence on Search Engines

Perhaps you’ve already had a website for a while and you’ve been adding content now and again. Your website is generally healthy and seems to find favor with the search engines, given how your content seem to rank pretty well without much effort.

In this case, it’ll be more effective to focus on SEO first and capitalize on your existing online presence.

By ramping out content and link-building efforts, you’re likely to see significant results since your website already has a good foundation.

You Want to Improve Your Website and Content

If your website and content is an important part of your business, then it makes sense to focus on SEO since search engine optimization efforts would focus on those factors anyway.

Some businesses haven’t updated their websites in a long time while some businesses don’t even have a website to begin with. If you’re not one of them, and in fact, love putting out new content to engage with your audience while taking pride in your website design and UX, then SEO is the way to go.

You Prefer Sustainable Results

With PPC, your presence on Google search results disappears the minute you stop paying for the ads. You might not like that and prefer sustainable, long term results instead.

With local Search Engine Optimization, the focus is also more on building better brand awareness online, not just getting more leads in the short term. You’re creating quality content often, earning backlinks for your website and improving your website design and UX; when you do these often and strategically, you can expect good sustainable results in the long run.

Focus on PPC First If:

You’re a New Company

PPC is a fast and effective way of getting more leads so if your business is just starting out, it’s ideal since it will put your company at the top of the search results right away.

In other words, if your roofing company is new or only just now getting into digital marketing, then PPC should be your priority. For companies that don’t want to put in months of work before they see results, PPC is the way to go.

You’ll see results quickly just from launching an ad. Your Google ads will even show up at the very top of the page, which is great if your business is located in an area with lots of competition.

Bear in mind that PPC is a better short-term campaign. You pay for each click and for the keywords you target, so it’s not your best long-term option.

While PPC has great value for a new company starting out, it doesn’t mean you can’t benefit from it if you’re an established roofing company. As an established roofing company, you might want a little extra boost in your website traffic or brand awareness, then PPC campaigns could still be a great start while you work on preparing your long-term campaign.

You Don’t Want to Deal With Algorithm Changes

It’s no secret that Google changes their algorithm often, which can affect your rankings on search results. If you don’t want to deal with this volatility, PPC will be more attractive since you just have to pay to appear right at the top of the page.

Which One Should You Choose For Your Roofing Business?

You might be surprised but our advice is: your business should work on both SEO and PPC together as a comprehensive digital marketing strategy.

This is so that you can start seeing results quickly with PPC ads, while still working on your long-term local SEO for your website.

When you use both PPC and SEO, the two work together to help you get more leads and generate more traffic. With both working at once, you receive results in a faster, more cost effective manner.

You should always aim to include both in your digital marketing strategy then tweak them as you go along. For example, once your website is ranking well and bringing in a consistent flow of leads, you might decide to lower your PPC ad expenditure.

Conclusion

SEO and PPC are powerful marketing tools in digital marketing. Both work differently, but they actually do complement each other well and can be potent when used together strategically.

When you’re trying to decide which to use first, it’s always important to look at your goal or your current situation. There’s a reason SEO and PPC are different and that’s to meet different needs. As long as you know what your marketing goal is and which tool will help you reach it, you’ll be able to make the right choice and run a successful campaign.