I would not call PPC a waste of money. PPC is a great way to quickly get visitors to your
website hosting. If you have something new that you need to promote fast and you have an advertising budget then PPC is great. It must be popular or Google would not be making money from it and Big companies would not be using it.
Search Engine Optimization is definitely a better option as it does drive more traffic to our
website hosting if you appear in the top 10 of a search result
In short, PPC is a great short term goal to get you noticed while you are waiting for your Search Engine Optimization to take shape, SEO is a better long term goal which if done correctly will give you high traffic.
Finally, PPC and Search Engine Optimization are only half of the work, you need to make sure your
website hosting offers something to interest your visitor and make then want to sign-up/purchase or whatever your aim is.
Thats my thoughts anyway.