How do SEO and PPC work together? Does one complement the other? Will running PPC ads help to improve your SERPs? These two marketing strategies are the backbone of digital advertising for many brands, but how—if at all—do they work together?
SEO vs. PPC
Pay-per-click (PPC) is a form of paid advertising where advertisers set their keywords and demographics and pay for every click of a promoted search result or banner/text ad.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is an organic marketing strategy whereby brands perform a variety of techniques (publishing relevant content, improving website speed, building a backlink portfolio) designed to improve their ranking in search engine results pages (SERPs).
They don’t really work together, but there are times when these methods cross.
For instance, if you’re running an SEO campaign for a specific keyword, you may also use PPC ads to promote that keyword. If a user then searches for it, your ad could appear as a “Sponsored” placement near the top of the rankings (PPC), an organic placement below (SEO), and even a banner or text ad on one of the sites they visit (PPC).
Does PPC Affect SEO?
Firstly, let’s dispel a common belief about PPC and SEO:
A PPC campaign will not improve your search engine rankings.
Some advertisers believe that sinking money into Google Ads will give their SEO a boost, as if Google is rewarding them for spending money.
That’s simply not the case.
However, an additional PPC campaign can help with your overall marketing.
- Increased Presence: It gives you more presence in SERPs. As noted above, a PPC/SEO campaign could mean your landing pages appear twice in a single search result, pushing your brand into the user’s consciousness and making you more memorable.
- Collecting Lost Clicks: There’s a lot going on within those SERPs, and even a top ranking can be missed. But if you’re supporting that ranking with sponsored placements, there’s less chance prospective clients and customers will overlook your brand.
- Display Ads Help with Remarketing: Some consumers take a long time to make up their minds. They may have already been introduced to your brand and are still considering their purchase. If they then see your brand in sponsored search results, on display ads, in video ads, and at the top of the rankings, there’s more chance they’ll commit.
Does SEO Affect PPC?
The benefits of adding an SEO campaign to a PPC campaign are much the same as doing the reverse.
It’s all about increasing your exposure and ensuring that more users see your services and learn about your brand.
What’s more, if you have already been running a PPC campaign, adding SEO will bring more traffic to your site.
Some users skip the sponsored placements at the top of SERPs and jump straight to the organic results. If those sponsored placements are all you have, you will miss every single one of those customers. If you’re also ranking highly for the same keywords, you could get their business.
PPC can teach you a lot about SEO keywords, as well.
You’ll have a good idea of which keywords users in your target demographic use the most, as well as which ones are the most competitive.
For instance, if you discover that a particular keyword is effective but costly, you can work on building organic rankings and then consider directing that PPC budget elsewhere.
After all, while SEO does require an initial fee for writers, editors, and SEO consultants, you don’t pay per click or conversion.
As long as you have laid the groundwork, your content strategy will cost you the same regardless of whether you’re getting clicks from a popular and competitive keyword or an obscure one.
How to Create Effective SEO/PPC Strategies
When you’re just getting started and have limited capital and resources, you don’t need both PPC and SEO. They can work well together, but they’re not interchangeable and don’t need to begin at the same time.
Whether you’re going all-in from the outset or picking up one of these strategies after establishing the other, here are some tips for integrating SEO and PPC.
Plan and Coordinate
You should have a clear and concise plan of action before tackling either of these marketing options.
Every department should know what that plan is, what your keywords are, and what direction the business is going.
That way, your content team can coordinate with your marketing team, and your developers will know exactly what is expected of them (which is important for technical SEO aspects such as clean navigation and high site speed).
Unify Your Keywords
Create a list of your most relevant keywords. These are the ones you should target with PPC and SEO campaigns.
We’ve already discussed how targeting the same keyword with both strategies can help with retargeting and collecting missed clicks, so don’t assume that you can avoid a keyword with your SEO campaign just because it’s covered in a PPC campaign.
Cover Gaps
There are keywords you can target with SEO that won’t necessarily apply to PPC.
For instance, if you sell a small range of herbal teas, your PPC campaigns would cover all major keywords relating to those teas, and you would build a comprehensive SEO strategy to cover them as well.
You may also decide to write about a few alternative teas in your blog. It’s still herbal tea, so it’s still relevant to your industry, and anyone who visits a blog post relating to a different tea may buy what you’re selling or at least read some more blogs.
It’s unlikely, however, that you’d get a high conversion rate targeting those teas with costly keyword bids.
At the same time, PPC display and video networks can target users that SEO campaigns can’t reach (such as those who stick solely to social media networks and video streaming sites) while also retargeting users once they leave the search engine.
Maintain and Update
SEO and PPC need ongoing maintenance to ensure you:
- Find and fix mistakes.
- Remove ineffective and expensive keywords.
- Keep producing new content.
- Monitor your analytics.
- Update content to ensure it remains accurate and topical.
- Acquire more backlinks.
- Add new products to existing campaigns.
Summary: Combining SEO and PPC
SEO and PPC campaigns take a lot of work and need an expert approach to get the best results.
You have products/services to consider and a brand to build, so if you want to focus on what you do best and leave the rest to the experts, get in touch with us today.
We have the expertise needed to craft a tailored and effective SEO strategy, and we have a proven track record to support our efforts. Contact us for more detailed information and a personalized quote.
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