PPC (or pay-per-click) and SEO are often characterised as two mutually exclusive digital marketing strategies. Businesses either use PPC, or they use SEO: they don’t use both.
But, with a little thought, it’s easy to see that SEO and PPC can work together, boosting the overall effectiveness of your marketing budget.
Both SEO and PPC cost money. It doesn’t make sense, therefore, to focus on one or the other. What firms care about is the effectiveness of their marginal marketing dollar: how much bang for the buck can they get from their digital marketing for each additional dollar they spend? Managers and entrepreneurs shouldn’t commit to one strategy or the other; they should choose to use both in a way that maximises their return.
There are many ways in which SEO and PPC synergise. Take a look at some of these ideas to get your PPC and SEO campaigns working together.
Gain Shared Insights
Although search engine optimisation and pay-per-click advertising are treated as separate entities, smart businesses know that they can use data derived from one to enhance the other. For instance, companies can collect data from their PPC advertising, see what works, and then implement similar strategies, keywords or H1 and H2 in their SEO content.
Use Landing Page Data
Companies can use their landing pages in a similar way by collecting data on the preferences of PPC-derived prospects. Firms can track which content, CTAs, and images are effective for PPC prospects and then utilise these insights in their organic SEO content.
Achieve Search Results Dominance
Some companies find that there are advantages of being both at the top of the advertising results and the organic search results. Being at the top of both signals to the customer that you’re a leader for their particular search query, making it more likely that they’ll trust you and click through to your site.
Build Customer Confidence In Your Brand
One of the best ways to build trust with your customers is through repeated exposure. People tend to trust what they see as familiar, and so businesses who can get their message in front of customers regularly are more likely to convert. Combining SEO and PPC is one of the best ways to do this because both can be used during different stages of the customer journey.
Most customers do not convert the first time they interact with your firm. Instead, they come into contact with your digital marketing content on several occasions before committing to buy. The first time they encounter you, they may click a PPC advertisement at the top of search results and get forwarded to a landing page. Next, they might do another search and click one of your blog posts high up in the rankings, thanks to effective SEO.
Then they may make several more visits, viewing product pages or making additional searchers and consuming more SEO-related high-ranking content, before finally converting. Using SEO and PPC together helps you attract and retain customer interest through multiple channels.
Use Competitor SEO Analysis In PPC
Competitor SEO analysis is fast becoming the norm for companies wanting to boost the effectiveness of their SEO. What’s the point of starting from scratch when somebody has already found a strategy which works? But what most firms don’t realise is that they can use competitor insights to drive better PPC. Competitors may be drawing people in using specific keywords or targeting a particular audience.
Use PPC Search Intent Data
Although certain keywords might be related to your business (and they may be popular), they still might not be associated with sales and conversions. People searching for “history of plumbing,” for example, may be more interested in researching plumbing than hiring a plumber. As a business, you want to target customers who have “intent to buy.” Tools like Google’s search query report can tell you the rate at which people converted after typing in specific keywords compared to others. Not only do you want to design your PPC around these particular keywords, but also use them in your SEO too. SEO content build around keywords that prospects use before converting are likely to yield higher returns than generic keywords
Leverage Your Display Network
Not all websites in your display network offer the same rates of conversion. Some sites will be popular among your customers, while others not. As a business, it’s in your interest to use your PPC data to find out which websites bring the most traffic to your site and generate the most conversions. Once you’ve got these data, you can pass them on to your SEO team who can approach these sites and offer to create lead-generating content.
