Don’t believe everything you read. Whoever wrote that article about PPC being dead was obviously misinformed. I’ll try to explain why.
It’s true that PPC is very competitive, and if you don’t know what you are doing it can be a losing proposition. However the same can be said about SEO. The two marketing methods are different in many ways, however, there is a great deal of synergy when you combine the two.
If a website converts organic traffic then it will definitely convert PPC traffic as well. However, if you are serious about your marketing you will get the best results by combining the two methods. PPC will give you faster results than you could ever hope for in an SEO campaign. It will also provide you with highly useful data that can inform your SEO campaigns. While SEO campaigns can often provide a higher ROI over the long term, you will definitely have a longer period of negative cash flow from SEO promotional campaigns in competitive niches.
SEO is simple and easy to learn, but promotional campaigns in competitive niches, that rely heavily on SEO, are also labor-intensive. PPC advertising is much more technical and has a relatively steep learning curve. However, if you know your stuff you can get very quick results, and use the profits from your PPC campaign to finance the labor for your promotional SEO campaigns.
Consider this, your most serious competitors are going to be using both methods of marketing to crush you. If you choose to do just one, you will be at a serious disadvantage, and will likely end up with just the crumbs you competitors leave behind.
