It’s not SEO versus PPC anymore, it’s SEO with PPC now.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and PPC (Pay-Per-Click) serve completely different purposes but both reap great benefits for your business. SEO is more focused on building an audience and making your business known online organically with the use of targeted keywords and high-quality content. PPC, on the other hand, will only make make you pay for advertising when users follow the link to your landing page.
You have probably come across this post because you are wondering if SEO and PPC can be combined. And yes, they could. In fact, using them through these ways will get you hitting a goldmine in your marketing.
While many people approach SEO and PPC as completely separate strategies, you should always see them as being two sides of the same coin: SEARCH. They both have the goal of attracting potential customers to your website.
One of the very remarkable things you could get for integrating SEO and PPC is that you’ll be able to cover both the organic and paid sections of your entire digital marketing structure simultaneously, and even more harmoniously. This certainly makes your marketing life easier. For example, you wouldn’t have to go and come up with another keyword for PPC as you might already have something that is working for your organic SEO. You’ll also fare better on determining if you are targeting the right keywords and or what other means could work for both.
In short, collaborating SEO and PPC makes your work for the organic and paid field even better than what might’ve been before. When used effectively, it can have good risk-reward balance as there tends to be a relatively low cost-per-click.
Another gleaming benefit of having SEO and PPC working side by side is making your brand even more visible. Brand exposure with SEO is undeniably powerful, but coupling it with ads will further improve your customer trust and conversion rate.
Having SEO and PPC will also help you get better control of customer purchase, as roping in people to visit your website does not always guarantee them availing products and services. Sometimes, you need PPC as an extra push –to influence them either subtly or consciously and get them to engage with your business. An ad right after they bounce out of your site could pave way for them getting back in.
So how do we actually combine SEO and PPC?
PPC lets you test new SEO keywords.
SEO often takes significant time, research, and expense. It will take at least 6 months to see a website rank at the top of the search engines and this is with moderate competition in your market. There may be times that you are considering targeting specific keywords with your SEO efforts but unsure if it will pay off. One way that you can check the viability of a keyword for SEO is with PPC.
PPC lets you know quickly which set of keywords and type of content can be enticing for consumers. Since SEO already gives you a full set of keywords that works wonderfully for your business, you can then use that same set for your PPC (as good keywords for PPC is anything but inexpensive). This is one cost-effective way to test the waters on a search engine.
Simply pick keywords you think you stand a chance at ranking highly for and purchase PPC advertising for it. Monitor the results for a while and see how your website performs. If it impacts your campaign positively, you should consider optimizing your site for it. Remarketing campaigns allow you to reach previous website visitors.
Remarketing campaigns allow you to reach previous website visitors.
Assuming your website is already drawing visitors and ranking fairly well from your SEO efforts, it won’t always guarantee sure buyers. You can combine your SEO with a form of PPC called remarketing to get them back to your site to complete their purchase at a later time. This gives you an opportunity to encourage them, when they may have forgotten about your existence entirely.
For example, if someone is shopping for office supplies on your website, but wants some time to think about it, you can purchase ad space from a website in Google’s network to show them ads for those same office supplies at a later time. This will remind them to come back to your site and complete the purchase.
SEO had already done its job before remarketing, and now we’re passing the ball to PPC to draw these patrons back to your website. You can set up advertisements with Google Ads that would follow your leads around, should they opt to activate their cookies.
Online shopping sites are known to use this method and they do this efficiently. Not only do they offer what the customer has typed into the search bar, they also show other “potential buys” the customer might like. Amazon is a good example of a conglomerate that uses flexible bid strategies from Google Ads for automatic bids so they can obtain enhanced cost-per-click and the target search page location they want.
Treat SEO as a support and a major player
Using SEO and PPC simultaneously also gives you data for decision-making purposes. You can examine similar metrics from both your SEO and PPC campaigns, including:
- Clickthrough rate
- Bounce and exit rates
- Time on site
- Conversion rate
You can get this data from PPC or SEO separately. However, using both doubles the data you have. These data can help you determine which keywords are the most effective in converting leads into sales, helping you make smarter decisions about your marketing and future changes to your website.
If you are not doing it yet, fully combining SEO and PPC will require a revamping of your digital marketing strategies. This would not disrupt your current workflow, but it is still best to know whether or not you are ready for it before taking it on.
To help you, ask yourself these questions:
- What is my goal?
- Am I ready to be more competitive?
- Do I understand SEO and PPC well separately?
- Is my SEO and PPC team ready for collaboration?
- Am I willing or prepared to spend for PPC?
With those questions in mind, if you are ready to take on newer digital marketing strategies, be sure to have a digital marketing company to be working with you to ensure that your team’s transition to combining SEO and PPC becomes a worthy endeavor!
Mawnster Marketing offers a wealth of Digital Marketing Solutions and packages that can help you put your best business foot forward. We can help you put up a website with videos, banners, infographics, and blog posts that will showcase your brand to the world. We also offer Pay Per Click campaign creation, Search Engine Optimization, Website Development, and Social Media Marketing. Drop us an e-mail at info@www.mawnstermarketing.com, call us up at (703) 895-0737, or contact us online for all of your Digital Marketing queries and for more information.
