Understanding the correlation and how PPC and SEO work together can help you nail down website improvements. These two methods can be in unison towards a common goal, and that is to land you on top of the competition, gain organic rankings, increase the traffic, and in the end – revenue.
These two strategies might seem out of sync. One is a low investment with fast results and short-term effects, while the other is viewed as a long-term strategy that takes a lot to get you to rank. However, the best thing you can do is combine both, or as the saying goes – get the best of both worlds in order to get people to your website. By incorporating these two techniques into each other and using them for various purposes, you can greatly improve the visibility of your website.
Let’s Get to the Bottom of These Terms – What Is SEO?
What does SEO stand for? You may have heard it here and there, and you may know something about Search Engine Optimization in general, but here is a more detailed explanation. SEO marketing services are the key method of digital marketing that will get your internet presence on top of SERP on Google, Bing, and other relevant engines. In essence, it’s a technique that encompasses the use of keywords relevant to your business.
Its use is simple, but it works in an intricate way – as a user types or speaks a request into the search engine, the engine will then show the pages it deems has the most relevant content. Whether it’s a text-heavy page, videos, or local listings, the results will rank based on their keyword optimization, which matches the query, along with other optimization techniques.
This type of optimization is important. In fact, according to statistics, organic search provides the best ROI (return on investment) compared to other marketing channels, according to 49% of marketers. Also, when you make a comparison to digital advertising, incorporating SEO can lower the cost of customer acquisition by 87%.
PPC Advertising in a Nutshell
When you type a query into a search engine such as Google, the top organic results will always be the ones with the best Search Engine Optimization. However, right on top, before the organic query hits, you can see a bunch of ads. This is the result of PPC (pay-per-click advertising). It also includes advertisements you notice on social media networks and on the corners of different search engines. They are called PPC advertising or pay-per-click for a reason. The businesses that use this type of marketing technique exclusively pay for those ads only which are clicked on by users. Otherwise, they won’t be paying for them.
Here are some valuable statistics concerning this type of advertising campaign:
- 50% more customers who arrive at a retailer’s website via sponsored advertisements are likely to make a purchase than those who arrived via an organic link.
- Because it directly responds to their search query, 33% of consumers will click on a sponsored search ad.
- PPC is reportedly very helpful for businesses, according to 79% of marketers.
How PPC and SEO Work Together Then?
If you are new to one of these two marketing methods, you might be wondering if one affects the other and in what way. You shouldn’t worry because your site optimization and rankings won’t be affected by the pay-per-click campaigns. And the other way around, SEO won’t affect your advertising. But nonetheless, these two methods are best when combined, so let’s see what to do about it and why SEO and PPC working together will be to your business’s advantage.
You may have heard two types of claims – that implementing SEO takes a long time to reach the desired goals and that sponsored ads are way too complex. In reality, neither of these two claims is true, but it does take figuring out how SEO and PPC work together to be able to achieve the best results. There is one claim that is true, though – aligning these two methods is a highly underrated way to improve the performance of your business’s internet presence.
These Two Methods Will Help in Creating More Accurate Data
Before we get to the topic of how to get the best out of PPC and SEO working together, we should explain one often overlooked benefit. It is a fact that when these strategies are combined, you will get a large source of information and accurate data that will help you in your decision-making. Here are the metrics you can examine:
- Clickthrough rate (CTR) – this shows the number of clicks you receive on your ads. It’s measured through clicks and impressions – CTR is 5% if you’ve had 100 impressions and 5 clicks.
- Bounce rates and exit rates – Bounce occurs when visitors visit and exit the page without further interacting. The bounce rate is calculated by dividing the number of bounces by the overall number of views. The exit rate is calculated by comparing the total number of visitor views with the ones exiting.
- The average time spent on a page – This is a website analytics metric that evaluates how long, on average, all website visitors stay on a single page.
- The conversion rate – This metric is one of the most important ones, as it analyzes how frequently social media posts lead to conversion events like downloads, sales, or subscriptions.
You Will Need to Thrive in Both Strategies
We could argue about which marketing strategy is the more powerful tool. But in fact, pay-per-click is a powerful tool for SEO, and the other way around – Search Engine Optimization is a powerful tool for PPC. That is why, in order to stand out from the competition, you should thrive in both. In order to understand how do SEO and PPC work together, you should understand how to make the best of them.
Keyword Traps Should Be Avoided
Some keywords may have very subtle differences and thus respond to the wrong queries. This is why marketers master understanding the intent behind different search terms. It's useful knowledge because it can help you avoid keyword traps that can work in your favor but also be a gamble at the same time. It's when you advertise a different product or a service to users that are searching for related products and services. It may work, or it may bleed. So we advise you not to use it unless you have enough money for these types of campaigns to be comfortable.
Share PPC Metrics With the SEO Team
The SEO team works hard on finding new keyword sets, trying them out, and getting the results. But in reality, some keyword sets can take months to get data you can measure, and it may result in CTR and engagement being low, even if you've landed on top of SERP. That's where the PPC team can jump in and save the day. SEM (Search Engine Marketing) or paid marketing is quite the opposite because it will show you whether your ad campaign is working or not within days. The best thing about it is that it is a low investment. So if you're wondering how do PPC and SEO work together, you can use the pay-per-click insights to incorporate into the larger SEO strategy.
Reap the Benefits of Both on Landing Pages
Preparing a budget and spending some money on paid advertising seems like low effort with good results and lots of traffic on your website. But if you try to run ads without testing how efficient landing pages are, it could end up as a waste of funds, time, and effort. This is where it's fairly obvious how optimization helps. You should optimize those landing pages to get the best possible performance and not throw precious money out the window while you spend it on ineffective digital experiences.
Search for a Strategy That Will Let You Dominate SERP
It shouldn't be that hard to find that perfect strategy. All you need to do is entwine optimization and paid ads. Or is it that simple? But let's consider the ways it can get tough out there in the top SERP, even for established brands. Search engines like Google and Bing have algorithms that can push your organic success further down, favoring paid results, even if the keyword set is closely related to your brand and company's name. So what can you do about it? You know what they say - hate the game, not the player, and thus try to occupy as much internet real estate as possible. You can do this successfully by combining the powers of optimized content, PPC, affiliate partners, and reaching out to a good social media marketing agency.
Analyze Audience Behavior to Get Organic Results
The results you gain with paid ads are almost immediate, and we've already mentioned how valuable they are for testing new keywords. But there is another key benefit you can reap from PPC and its insights into various interests and demographics of the reached audiences. It's the perfect opportunity to gather other and more thorough types of data, such as age groups, gender, location, household income, devices, lifestyle, and interests. If you want a pro tip, pay attention to the search terms report, which you can find on the Google Ads platform. It will show you which of these search terms are generating clicks.
Incorporate Different Strategies and Follow the Evolution of Digital Marketing
As we’ve stated, the essential benefit of Search Engine Optimization is in the long-term results. In essence, the more you use this marketing strategy, the more you reap actionable data. When it’s closely related to PPC, you can easily grow organic traffic and rank even the most competitive terms and keywords. The end goal? To rule the SERP at the very top and dominate the competition.
Your Marketing Strategies Need Conversion Data From Paid Advertising
You should be aware that both these strategies can be incorporated into topic clusters, a new way to dominate the top of SERP. It’s an excellent mechanism for internal linking, with a pillar page crosslinked with other pages related to the topic. It can even get your website to rank in the glorious top position and have a featured snippet at the top of SERP.
If Your Business Requires Successful Marketing Strategies, Reach Out to Us
Some things are easier said than done, we understand. And while we’ve provided most of the available advice on combining different marketing techniques, you should know that search engines are constantly changing. They update to follow the behavior of users, and that means only one thing – that the optimization, content, and everything else that gets your business to rank needs to follow up on the novelties.
That’s where we step in. If you’re in dire need of the best SEO agency out there, we aim never to disappoint. Whether you need a content writing agency providing high-quality content, YouTube SEO for your videos, or a website development agency to get your website’s speed to dizzying heights, we’ve got your back. Contact us today and discuss with us your individual plan that will let us find the perfect solutions to your ranking issues.