Delving into search marketing can be an intimidating task. Right off the bat, most companies are faced with the same dilemma – do we invest in PPC or SEO? While paid and organic search are often viewed as two exclusive initiatives, they are in fact two sides of the same coin: search marketing.
As the many informative posts about it say on sites like https://stellarseo.com/link-building-services/, there are many ways in which PPC and SEO efforts compliment each other, and lead to a more successful search marketing strategy. Employing both strategies will not only increase the overall number of impressions you receive in a search engine results page, but can also lead to more clicks and conversions.
Think of PPC as a shorter term initiative. AdWords campaigns can be relatively easily set up, and can offer results and provide data almost immediately. On the other hand, SEO should be viewed as a marathon, not a sprint. They not only take a great deal of time and effort to implement, but it can take upwards of 3-6 months before any appreciable results are seen. While some marketers find that this lag time frustrating, kickstarting your search efforts with a PPC campaign is always a good strategy.
In the meantime, considering the following; a site optimized for search will help the quality score of your PPC campaigns, thus giving you a better return on your paid search investment. So instead of trying to determine if you should be doing one over the other, think about how they can work together to help improve your overall search marketing strategy.
1. Increased Visibility
One of the major benefits of implementing both paid and organic search efforts is the added exposure on the search engine results page. Dominating the paid and organic search results will greatly increase traffic and give the impression that you’re an established, credible presence providing thought leadership in your particular market.
2. Shared Keyword Data
Simultaneously investing in organic and paid search gives you double the data to analyze. Determine which paid keywords have the highest conversion rate, and use that data to signal your SEO efforts. Conversely, identify your top performing organic keywords and implement them into your PPC strategy.
3. Test Organic Keywords with PPC
You want to rank organically for a certain set of keywords, but have no idea how they will perform. PPC ads are a great way to refine your organic keyword strategy. As your long term organic keyword strategy evolves, test the conversion rates of the words you want to rank for organically with PPC ads. You’ll get near immediate feedback on the effectiveness of the organic keywords you’re after, and can fine tune your strategy accordingly.
4. Use Best Performing PPC Ad Copy to inform Organic Content Strategy
What works for PPC often works for SEO. By determining which PPC ads result in the most conversions, you’ll have a good idea how to create title tags, meta descriptions and content for the pages that you want to rank for organically. The benefit of using PPC ads to test attributes is the immediacy of the results. You’ll know pretty quickly what works and what doesn’t, while organically testing titles and metas can take months.
5. Use Site Search to inform PPC Keywords
The main goal of PPC advertising is to figure out which keywords your customers use to find your product or service. Using data gathered from your website’s site search can give you valuable insights into your customers’ needs and search habits.
6. Identify Top Converting Paid Keywords with Low SEO Visibility
Let’s say you’ve got a paid search keyword that has a very high conversion rate, but is also very competitive, meaning that it has a higher cost per click. If that same keyword has low, or no visibility in organic search, taget it in your SEO strategy. Knowing that it converts well, targeting it on the organic side will allow for your paid search funds to be reallocated to lower cost keywords. Your PPC data can often help you identify the low hanging fruit, and help you optimize your organic search efforts.
7. Landing Page Strategy
Paid search marketers often think about landing pages almost exclusively in terms of conversions. SEO marketers think about landing pages in terms of relevancy and search engine ranking. By combining the two approaches, you should end up with the perfect landing page – one that ranks highly, is relevant and converts. When creating your landing pages, wear both your PPC and SEO hats.
PPC is always a great space to test out new ideas. Without spending a lot of money you can gather very specific, detailed data that can not only help improve your overall search efforts moving forward, but also provide you with data about keywords and landing pages. Knowing which keywords your ideal audience searches for, and which ones convert, you can target them in your orgnic search and content strategy to generate long-term, qualified organic traffic. Understanding not only differences between PPC and SEO, but how they can be effectively used to work together as part of your overall search marketing strategy is essential to achieve the best possible results.
Are your PPC and SEO efforts working together? Having trouble achieving your search engine marketing goals? Contact us today, we’d love to help.
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