Many of you have probably been told that most people who use Google click on the organic list (SEO). I have heard figures that up to 70% of Google's users click on the organic list. It depends certainly on who you talked to and where they have their greatest interest. So where do people click when they use Google and on what should you invest in on Google, SEO or PPC?

SEO or PPC? Reference to a recent study!

We often hear different figures on this but there is one fairly recent studies compiled by Wordstream on this topic. The numbers and search behavior is based from the U.S. market who are further ahead than the European, but they still give an indication of how it looks and where we are headed. What they say is that PPC/Adwords sometimes takes as much as 64% of all searches. But of course these figures will vary from industry to industry and from keyword to keyword.

There is big changes on both SEO and PPC, but the differences is that it only gets harder to rank high in the organic list and Adwords seems to take more land. Google have done two major updates, Panda and Penguin, which has affected many pages.

In the case of PPC marketing, Google always develop new features that improve Adwords. Since a while back there is Location Links, Click-to-call and extended headlines to name a few. But in the near future we will also be able to see Product listings. That means you can connect your products with pictures to your Adwords ads. All changes is to make it easier for the users of Google to as quickly as possible find the product they are looking for along with an offer that will attract clicks.

The figures in Wordstreams report shows that the highest number of clicks sponsored links/PPC is made when searching for an actual product and organic when users look for information, I guess Google have achieved their goals.

Why choose one of SEO or PPC?

My advice will always be to the greatest extent possible to work with both SEO and PPC, one does not exclude the other. You can be sure that if you do not have a placement organically or PPC, any of your competitors will have it.

But before you start thinking about how you will invest in SEM, make a quick market research. By using Google Adwords, you can quickly get your services or products on Google and you can see search volumes, sales etc. This will give you a better basis for decisions and may well be crucial to whether you should try to make efforts on certain keywords organically. Also, you might find better keywords through Adwords than you thought from the beginning.

No one can have top positions on all search phrases organically, it's just not cost effective. You have a better opportunity to cover up with Google Adwords. SEO is more cost effective than Adwords in many ways since all clicks thru the organic list is free, where in PPC you pay-per-click.

When to do what

I think everyone knows that neither SEO or PPC is a self-playing piano that just gives you business while you're doing something else. Both require a lot of work to make it work well and Google makes updates and changes that will affect your business online in one way or another.

Always go for SEO on high volume keywords, PPC on keywords to complement or strengthen your presence.