Many believe in handling SEO and PPC as distinct marketing strategies. Sure, they differ in many ways. However, there are several ways in which SEO and PPC efforts complement each other when used together to give an improved result.

In this guide, we’ll be looking at these various methods of effectively using both SEO and PPC.

By the end of this article, you’ll be able to understand how the combination of SEO and PPC can help boost traffic, leads, and revenue in general. But before then, let us first understand what each marketing strategy means.

What Exactly is SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a strategy used to get a website to rank higher in searches for targeted phrases or keywords. Using this technique, you can optimize your website to rank on search engine results pages (SERP) by strategically inserting certain keywords or phrases into website content.

Such website content could be blog articles, web pages, or landing pages.

When it comes to SEO, keywords are vital. The chances of ranking high on a SERP (which can help boost customer leads, conversion rates, and traffic) increase with how effectively you integrate keywords throughout your web content.

What is PPC?

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is a type of online advertising in which a company creates a Google AdWords account and runs an ad campaign.

Those ads seen at the top of the results page that are unnumbered and typically say “advertisement” or “ad” are PPC ad campaigns companies create. Essentially, PPC allows companies to buy traffic.

PPC is called pay-per-click because by using the ad, you get to pay only for each click of the ad link and not pay for any other thing. In other words, the more people visit the site and click on the link in the advertisement, the higher the amount of money you’ll have to pay.

Conversely, you won’t have to pay for the ad when there are no clicks.

How you can Get PPC and SEO Working Together

As mentioned earlier, there are different ways you can combine PPC and SEO for better results. Listed below are some of these strategies:

#1. Provision of More Data to Make Informed Decisions

One of the beneficial ways PPC and SEO can work together is to give you a sizable amount of data to aid in decision-making. From your SEO and PPC ads, you can analyze comparable metrics such as conversion rate, clickthrough rate, time on site, as well as bounce and exit rates.

Using these metrics, you can identify the effective keywords that will generate sales. You can also determine the keywords that send visitors to your website, including those who are less likely to buy something or become a lead. Consequently, this will enable you to decide more wisely regarding future website modifications and marketing campaigns.

Without any doubt, you can obtain this information separately from PPC or SEO. However, combining PPC and SEO allows you to get twice as much data, which aids in making more informed decisions.

#2. Gaining More Search Engine Presence

As you already know, optimizing your website with SEO increases your chances of appearing on the first page of search results for one or more of your target keywords. Likewise, if you buy PPC ads for the same target keyword with a high enough bid, your ad will appear near the top of the page whenever someone searches for that keyword.

Combining these two strategies (optimizing your website and buying PPC advertising) for that specific keyword you’re targeting achieves two things. First, it increases the likelihood of your brand dominating the search result (i.e. coming up first in the search results). Secondly, you stand a better chance of getting those valuable clicks.

#3. Checking SEO keywords that Will Pay off

There are times when you might be considering using a particular keyword but aren’t sure if it will pay off. In cases like this, PPC is one method you can use to test the keyword’s viability for SEO without spending a lot of time or money modifying your website to make it search-engine friendly.

Just choose a keyword you believe will help you rank highly and convert (one you believe is highly relevant to your goods or services), and buy a PPC advertising for the keyword. Then keep an eye on the results and watch your website performance.

If it performs well, you can optimize your website for that keyword. On the other hand, if the performance is poor (if your PPC ad falls flat), it may be an indication for you to steer clear of optimizing your site for that specific keyword.

#4. Getting Back Missed Search Engine Clicks

When your brand is already ranking number one organically on search engines for a specific keyword, you may assume that there isn’t any need to buy a PPC ad for that same target keyword. But a Google research study proves otherwise. According to the research, incremental ad clicks make up about 89 percent of the generated traffic using ads and isn’t replaced by organic clicks when there was a pause in search ads.

In other words, even if your website is already ranking number one organically, pausing your PPC ads could affect your traffic negatively. Conversely, PPC allows you to recover missed search engine clicks and interest from searchers you might have missed. PPC can also help you drive traffic from those looking for your goods or services, even if you’re not organically ranking as number one.

#5. Reaching Past Visitors

Consider a scenario in which your website ranks well due to your SEO efforts and brings in a fair number of visitors. These visitors are, however, only potential leads or shoppers who take their time before making decisions. In such a scenario, remarketing is a great way to entice these visitors to come back to your site and complete their purchase or conversion.

How? By combining PPC and SEO efforts.

Let’s assume the visitors are shopping for building supplies on your website but need some time to reflect on it. You can buy ad space from a website in Google’s network to show them ads for the same building supplies later. Doing this will prompt them to return to your website and finish the shopping.

In other words, when you combine PPC and SEO like that, you can reach past visitors, encouraging them to return to your website to finish their shopping or convert into a lead. Whereas without remarketing, there is a possibility that they may have completely forgotten about you.

Takeaway

Without any doubt, SEO and PPC work great separately. However, when properly combined, they can help websites and companies achieve much better results than depending solely on individual strategies.