In today’s world, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is vital for any website. It is one of the building blocks of any digital marketing tool. Talking of SEO, you may have often heard about the pay-per-click (PPC) advertising strategy. Normally these two i.e. SEO and PPC are considered individually. This means that SEO strategies are deployed mutually exclusive to PPC strategies. However, by deploying these strategies mutually inclusively you can achieve even greater and robust business results for your website.
There are a few ways in which SEO and PPC work together harmoniously. Digital marketing strategies are very volatile and they get tweaked very frequently with each passing day. Therefore, we will discuss the SEO and PPC combined strategies as they would work in 2022.
Before we dive into the charm of making the SEO and PPC strategies work in tandem with each other, let’s understand what SEO and PPC really are.
What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization is a process whereby your website is ranked better in Google search results based on targeted phrases or keywords. As it is evident from the name, an SEO strategy optimizes the searches for your website by ranking it higher in search results.
For instance, you run a website that sells “school bags”. To improve the rankings in search results you will use the relevant keywords for its product description. Moreover, you will need to update its meta descriptions and page titles to the phrases and keywords that depict what you are selling. Lastly, you will acquire backlinks to other websites that sell the same products (school bags in this case) or offer the same services. SEO does not end here, however, you got a basic understanding from this example.
Another example is if you are running a local online marketing campaign you can target specific service and location keywords to get your ideal prospect to call you through the Google maps section or visit your website and convert.
What is PPC?
PPC stands for pay-per-click. It is a type of digital marketing that you normally see on top of Google search results or other search engines in the form of ads. Sometimes these are along the side of searches as well. Now you may think why is it called pay-per-click? Actually, the businesses that place these ads pay for them only when they are clicked by any user. Otherwise, the business or company has no liability to pay for the search ads that they have placed.
You may think that PPC is the simplest way of acquiring new customers or driving traffic to your website. However, remember that the costs that are associated with certain keywords or phrases vary. This means that some of the keywords will be very affordable due to low or no competition and vice versa.
Now, let’s walk you through the science behind working together on both SEO and PPC strategies for optimal business results.
How Do SEO and PPC Work in Tandem?
The formula when SEO and PPC are combined will look like this:
SEO + PPC = boost in search results
Let’s work you through five simple ways through which SEO and PPC strategies can be deployed together for optimal results
PPC keyword data can be used more effectively for SEO
Your team working on PPC will have a huge amount of keyword data that they use for paid advertising. This keyword data will be based on real keywords, not the ones that are generated based on estimates. These keywords can be used for your SEO strategies for boosting your traffic. The reason why we recommend using PPC data or keywords, per se, for your SEO strategy is for the reason that each PPC campaign can be monitored for its efficacy. This means that a PPC campaign that drives traffic will mean the keywords are the best fit for your business and vice versa.
Likewise, instead of starting with SEO keywords based on various estimates, you can simply analyze the data from PPC campaigns and then deploy that data for SEO keywords. Therefore, if you are running both PPC and SEO strategies and your SEO team is not communicating with the PPC team, you may be missing out on excellent marketing opportunities. Worldwide, progressive and growing businesses have even merged their PPC and SEO teams to work in tandem with each other.
PPC can cover clicks missed by organic SEO
Normally, the misconception that a perfectly ranked organic SEO is enough to gather all the traffic is rampant among digital advertisers. If your website is ranking at the top with nothing but organic SEO, you may become reluctant to go for PPC advertising. However, one research done by the Quantitative Management Team of Google itself under its Google AI Blog titled Studies Show Search Ads Drive 89% Incremental Traffic suggests otherwise.
This study suggests that when you pause the PPC ads, you lose about 89% of traffic that you considered will be covered by your top-ranked organic SEO. This makes a strong case for making the PPC work in tandem with SEO. Simply put, by utilizing the power of PPC you are gaining back the clicks that were missed by your SEO strategy alone.
PPC can act as a proxy for quick-testing a specific keyword for SEO
Lets’s say you want to deploy SEO for some specific keyword(s) that you have not tried before. For this, you will go through the hassle of developing an SEO strategy. It will consume a significant amount of your time, research, and no doubt you will incur expenses as well. Moreover, at this stage, you are not 100% sure whether the selected keyword(s) will pay off or not. It is , therefore, a matter of risk vs. reward as far as the keyword is concerned.
What you need to do is simply choose a keyword that you think is the best fit for your needs and acquire PPC advertising for the same. Monitor the PPC campaign results for a while and you will know whether a certain keyword is the best fit for your business needs or not. Moreover, PPC is not very expensive or time-consuming for that matter. Once you make a decision after deploying the keyword(s) through PPC advertising, you may do an organic SEO for the same keyword(s).
Remarketing SEO leads through PPC
If your website is ranked well through organic SEO, you will definitely drive a lot of quality traffic. Remember, traffic alone is of not much use if it does not convert into revenue. Suppose the traffic consists of a number of visitors that are still making up their minds for the purchase of a certain product or service. You can use a combination of missed leads from SEO and remarket your website to the same visitors through PPC.
Simply put, you can deploy the remarketing technique through PPC for the shoppers on your website that are yet to convert into revenue. In business, every little effort to bring back a potential customer counts. This technique will encourage the shoppers to either complete their purchase or order something totally new.
Suppose a visitor surfs your website for a certain product and their purchase is still pending in their online cart. You can deploy PPC advertising for all such target customers to either finish their purchase i.e. checkout or offer them a similar product if they have already made the purchase through your website.
Related: Is Houzz Advertising Worth it?
Combined data for smart decision-making
Last, but not least, one way SEO and PPC can be mutually beneficial is through the data and relevant insights they provide for decision-making purposes. You can analyze the same metrics from both SEO and PPC strategies. These metrics include the following:
- Conversion rates
- Click-through rates
- On-site time (Time taken to surf through the web pages)
- Bounce rates
- Exit rates
Once you analyze these metrics from both SEO and PPC perspective, you can create a detailed analysis for your website. You can point out the effective keywords, landing page topic headings, meta descriptions, and backlinks. These will assist you in devising a robust strategy for ranking your website higher in search results. Obviously, you can extract the data for both SEO and PPC separately as well but that will destroy the purpose of combining both strategies and analyzing them together for enhanced results.
The Final Verdict – What We Learnt
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) are excellent digital marketing strategies in their own individual capacity. SEO deploys techniques to rank better in search results, while PPC is a paid advertising campaign that bears expense once a visitor clicks on the link. Individually both of these strategies are effective but when taken into consideration as mutually inclusive they can do wonders for your website. Combining SEO and PPC boost the search result ranking of your business thereby increasing revenue.
It is recommended to make your PPC advertising team and SEO strategists liaison with each other and communicate openly for enhanced results. You may encourage both these teams to deploy the points discussed in this article. Moreover, the world of digital marketing is everchanging, and that too in very little time. Therefore, keep an eye on the developments in both SEO and PPC strategies for exceptional results.
