SEO + PPC = Best Friends
Way back in 2011, Moz wrote a piece on the benefits of using both SEO and PPC in your digital marketing efforts. In it, they only list eight of the many benefits of combining your SEO and PPC strategies. To us, they’re kind of like chocolate and peanut butter. Both are different and good on their own, but combining them is even better. So why do so many companies still choose to focus on one over the other? Let’s break down what SEO and PPC actually are and some ways you can integrate them into your marketing plan.
SEO & PPC In A Nutshell
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing your website so that it ranks higher in a search engine for a desired keyword or phrase. Things like page titles, images, meta descriptions, site speed, and user experience will affect where you show up in the search results. SEO results are typically referred to as organic because they are not paid for. Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, on the other hand, involves a payment to the search engine.
In a PPC campaign, you essentially design landing pages, set a budget, and target and create ads for keywords and phrases. Every time somebody searches for your keywords your ads become part of a lightning-fast auction where they are bidding to be in the top spots of the search results. The cool part is that you only pay if your ad is clicked and nothing more. A lot of factors can affect your actual cost, so it is important to stay on top of these campaigns.
Alright so now that we know what SEO and PPC are we can better understand why using both is beneficial. The big thing that we will focus on is called search engine dominance.
The Perfect Combination
Imagine you wanted coffee and decided to go outside and start driving down a busy street to find the best coffee. If you see more than one of the same locations on the same street, how likely are you to go to that business? Clearly, that business is more dominant on that street. Well, the same thing applies online as well, and it’s called search engine dominance. The more you can show up on a search engine, the more likely people are to go to your website. Unlike a street though where maybe a person is willing to drive for miles to find what they want, search engine dominance really means dominating the first page of search results.
More than 75% of Google searches don’t go past the first page. So having ads and organic content on that page can really help get people back to your site. This is why we say that SEO and PPC are best friends in digital marketing. When you combine them you increase your chances of getting a click by 200%. Remember that they are different which can make integration hard, so here are some ways you can get started.
Use PPC Tools For SEO: Google Ads gives you a lot of tools to help optimize your ads. Some of these tools can also be used to help boost your SEO as well. For example, the keyword research tool can help you see top search terms related to your business. Use that list of keywords to start generating solid SEO content in addition to your ads.
Find Your Highest Performing SEO Content: Really track which keywords and content are working the best organically and then plan out an ad campaign for that content. This way you won’t waste time and money on pointless clicks back to your website. You’ll already know what your customers are willing to click on and learn about.
Play The Match Game: Try to match a specific ad up with a specific organic result. They don’t have to be a perfect match, but something pretty similar. Pretend that you’re a major car manufacturer. You’ve done your research and know that “safest cars 2020” is a huge search term. If you already have an ad that performs well for the keyword that says, “The Safe Car XY | 2020’s Safest Model”, it would be smart to make or optimize a page dedicated to why the Safe Car XY is the safest mode that could rank organically. The page title might be “The 2020 Safe Car XY Comparison”. Having a matching (or almost matching) ad and the organic content on that first page of results really will drive in more traffic, and raise overall brand awareness.
Trust An Expert: This can definitely be a lot to manage all on your own. It might be worth your time and money to pay somebody to manage your SEO and PPC efforts. Kite Media offers both SEO and PPC services and has highly trained account representatives who will make sure you’re dominating the search results. Contact us today to learn more.