How Does SEO & PPC Work Hand in Hand?
Many businesses often practise search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) marketing strategies separately, considering them as vastly different entities. However, did you know that by combining these two tactics, you can actually achieve even greater results?
While they might be fundamentally different, SEO and PPC methods work hand in hand to deliver the same outcome — increased website traffic and an increase in lead generation.
SEO and PPC are not mutually exclusive, but you need to understand the pros and cons of each.
Here is an example of where a ‘Paid/Sponsored Ad’ vs how an organic listing looks like on Google’s SERP (Search Engine Results Page).
What is SEO?
Let us zoom in on what SEO is to gain a more in-depth understanding of how it works individually. SEO, also known as ‘Search Engine Optimization’, is a practice of amplifying the quality and quantity of your traffic to your website through organic search engine results.
When it comes to optimising your website for SEO, do note that there are On-Page and Off-Page techniques.
To put it simply…
On-page SEO requires you to optimise your site internally to deliver information properly to search engines. We call this site indexing.
Off-Page SEO on the other hand refers to external factors which informs search engines to credit your site based on its authority, relevance, popularity and credibility.
If you are unsure of whether your website is optimised for SEO, check out our SEO checklist to ensure you’ve ticked all the boxes.
What is PPC?
PPC, also known as pay-per-click, refers to a form of digital marketing where advertisers pay a certain fee each time one of their ads is clicked on. Essentially, it is a way of buying visits into your site instead of generating traffic organically.
Depending on the cost of specific words used in your ads, PPC can be either an affordable or expensive way to acquire those visits. Certain words may be higher ranking than others due to the competition and popularity which will result in higher fees.
An example of Google’s Ads Manager
Should we use SEO & PPC together?
Yes, 100%!
The question is why not?
Regardless of whether you are a small business or a large corporation, you want to grow your leads long term via SEO and short term via PPC. An integrated strategy that comprises of both will benefit you in the long run.
According to Hubspot, an average person conducts between three and four searches on Google each day. On top of that, it’s estimated that Google processes approximately 63,000 search queries every second, translating to 5.6 billion searches per day and approximately 2 trillion global searches per year. This highlights Google’s dominance in the market, serving as the main point of reference for anyone who is looking for something on the Internet.
When it comes to picking between SEO & PPC, both are products of Google and they support each other synergetically. From a business perspective, wouldn’t it be better if your website had more presence when searched for so you look more credible than your competitors?
If both strategies are employed together for the same keyword, there will be a higher chance for your business to acquire clicks and also dominate the SERP.
Having both tactics works towards remarketing
Having both PPC and SEO enables you to capture people that have you as recall but still have not made up their minds on whether to reach out. Hence, you can look at having both strategies as a form of remarketing to re-capture potential customers.
Keyword Symbiosis: PPC can save you time and help you test keywords
As SEO typically takes quite a substantial amount of time and research, you might be unsure whether your SEO efforts will pay off, especially since results won’t be generated quickly. In this instance, you can choose to start with PPC to test the “visibility” of the keywords before you spend your time optimising it for SEO rankings.
Here is an example of what you can do
- Pick a keyword that you believe will rank high and generate significant traffic and run PPC ads with it.
- Monitor the results and observe how it performs. If the conversions are high, it is an indication that this keyword you picked is highly relevant and effective for your business.
- In other words, you may optimise your website with that particular keyword. However, if it doesn’t deliver good results, you have dodged a bullet because you didn’t waste your time optimising it for weeks and months to find out it doesn’t serve you.
According to Search Engine Land, Google has concluded that even with an #1 organic ranking, paid ads provided 50% more incremental clicks, which also means that even a #1 ranking on can benefit from having an accompanying ad. To sum it up, SEO and PPC should operate together because they are both necessary in any online campaign. Having both will increase your odds of conversions.
