Coupling search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising can curate a powerful online presence for your business. While each strategy has its unique advantages, combining them can yield even greater results.
SEO targets and acquires organic traffic, while PPC generates quick and targeted traffic through paid adverts. You want to start with SEO to collect audiences with problem-solving intent. Make SEO the top of your funnel for creating and warming up leads. Then, switch gears with PPC to convert those leads into sales.
In simple terms, SEO and PPC complement each other, like yin and yang. Here’s a guide on coupling the two strategies for maximum results.
Understanding SEO and PPC: What’s Common Between Them?
SEO is an abbreviation for Search Engine Optimization, the art of elevating a website’s ranking in search engine results. It entails tweaking various elements on a website, such as content, keywords, backlinks, and site structure, to make it more visible to search engines.
Ultimately, SEO aims to grow organic or non-paid traffic to a website.
What Is PPC?
PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click, a digital marketing practice through which advertisers pay for every click their ad generates from users on search engines, social media platforms, or famous websites with millions of traffic offer PPC advertising to marketers.
The PPC providers allow advertisers to bid for ad placement on their popular platforms. The main objective of PPC is to drive traffic and generate leads through paid advertisements.
What Do SEO and PPC Have in Common?
While SEO and PPC may seem like completely different strategies, several common elements exist between the two. These similarities can help you better understand how SEO and PPC couple up to strengthen your online footprint and drive traffic.
1. Targeting Keywords
SEO and PPC target specific keywords to reach their intended audience.
With SEO, you optimize website content with relevant keywords. With PPC, you choose keywords to bid on and create adverts that display to users searching for those keywords.
2. Improving Search Engine Visibility
Generally, SEO and PPC strive to boost a brand’s visibility on search engines.
With SEO, you achieve this by ranking higher organically in search results. With PPC, you can secure a top spot in search engine results through paid advertisements, increasing your visibility among potential customers.
3. Driving Qualified Traffic
Both strategies aim to attract the right kind of traffic: users who are interested in your products or services. SEO, through targeted keyword research and optimization, helps generate organic traffic from internet users actively asking questions on search engines.
PPC targets specific demographics, interests, and behaviors to attract qualified traffic that’s more likely to convert into leads or sales.
4. Data Analysis and Optimization
Another similarity between SEO and PPC is the importance of data analysis and optimization. Both strategies require ongoing monitoring and adjustment to improve performance.
With SEO, work smart! Google Analytics and Search Console are effective, free analytical tools you can use to know your SEO strengths and weaknesses, answering questions like:
- Which pages are indexed?
- How do your users behave on different pages on your site?
- Do you have broken links?
- Do all your images have alt tags?
- How fast or slow is your site?
- Which is your most popular content?
With such information, you can improve your user experience and content strategy as well as make informed decisions about future optimizations.
For PPC, platforms like Google Ads provide detailed analytics on ad performance, allowing you to optimize outcomes by adjusting:
- Bids.
- Ad copy.
- Targeting.
With such information, you can better decide how to tweak your ad campaigns for better results.
5. Budget Considerations
Is digital marketing free or paid?
SEO and PPC are also similar in that they are both marketing investments, and you have to spend time and money on them.
You don’t pay search engines directly for organic traffic, but investing in SEO can involve costs, such as hiring an SEO expert or investing in content and technical optimization.
Here are SEO packages for small businesses and key factors to consider. Some cost drivers include the level of keyword competition, industrial worth, and website health.
While it may take longer to see results with SEO, the long-term return on investment (ROI) can be higher.
In contrast, PPC requires an initial investment and ongoing costs for ad spend. The initial investment includes setting up an account, creating campaigns, and conducting keyword research.
Then, ongoing costs include ad spend for each click on your ads. The cost per click (CPC) varies as niches and keywords experience different levels of competitiveness and financial relevance.
Set a budget, and ensure you stick to it by carefully watching every PPC cost to squeeze out the most value from your investment. Continuously optimizing your campaigns can also help reduce costs and improve ROI.
How SEO and PPC Work Together to Increase Visibility
While SEO and PPC are distinct strategies, they can work together to increase your online visibility and drive more traffic to your website. In fact, using both in conjunction can often yield better results than using either one alone.
Here are some ways SEO and PPC can complement each other:
1. Shared Keyword Data
Both SEO and PPC rely heavily on keyword research. By sharing this data between the two strategies, you can find new keywords to target that you may not have discovered otherwise.
For example, if a particular keyword is performing well in your PPC campaigns, you can incorporate that keyword into your SEO strategy to try and rank for it organically.
That way, you can be earning passively in the long term and stop spending on PPC for that keyword.
Moreover, you can reach a wider audience by targeting both paid and organic results for the same keyword, increasing your overall visibility.
2. Testing and Refining Keywords
PPC offers the ability to test and refine keywords quickly. By monitoring which keywords are performing well in PPC campaigns, you can use this data to inform your SEO strategy and focus on optimizing for those high-performing keywords. We call this strategy PPC for SEO!
You can also use your SEO analytics to understand user preferences and use it to curate your PPC ad copy and landing pages. For example, your catalog of blog posts can help you determine which topics or keywords resonate well with your audience.
Use keywords and sentiments from your most popular posts to create split tests for your PPC ads. This way, you can see which ad copy resonates best with your target audience and use this data to refine your SEO content.
3. Dominate Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)
By using both SEO and PPC, you can increase the chances of appearing at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs). Since Google’s paid ads appear above organic results, if you can rank for a keyword organically and also have a paid ad for that keyword, you can essentially dominate the SERP for that specific search term.
It increases your search marketing visibility, but that’s not all. Dominating SERPs is a display of sheer, unimpeachable authority in the market or niche. It shows potential customers and competitors that you are a serious player in the industry, making it easy for them to trust and choose you over others.
4. Boosting Brand Awareness
Utilizing both SEO and PPC can help boost brand awareness. As mentioned earlier, appearing in both organic and paid results increases your visibility to potential customers.
Being present in multiple areas of the search engine results pages increases brand recall with each impression made on a user.
Additionally, running PPC campaigns allows you to target specific demographics or geographical locations. So, you can reach a wider audience that may not have been exposed to your brand through traditional SEO efforts.
5. Getting More Conversions
Ultimately, the goal of both SEO and PPC is to drive conversions for your business.
With PPC, you can create highly targeted ads that direct users to specific landing pages designed to convert them into customers. With SEO, you can optimize your website and content to attract and engage potential customers and lead them toward a conversion.
As we said in the intro, SEO generates long-term, sustainable traffic better than PPC, which can yield immediate results. Generate warm leads with SEO, then use PPC to capitalize on those leads and drive conversions.
Get PPC and SEO Working Together with Adopt The Web
At Adopt The Web, we specialize in creating comprehensive digital marketing strategies incorporating SEO and PPC tactics. Our team of experts will work with you to create a customized plan designed to drive results for your specific business goals.
Contact us today to learn how we can help you dominate SERPs by handling your SEO and paid advertising management.
