The two most common ways to drive sales for businesses in an online environment are search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC). Usually, marketing departments use just one of these while it would be much more beneficial to combine them to attract extra visitors, boost revenue and increase leads.
SEO and PPC can work really well together. In order to understand how this happens and boost your online marketing strategies, here is what you should know.
What Is Search Engine Optimization?
Search engine optimization can be defined as the process through which the website is improved so that it can rank higher in search engines for specific target phrases (keywords).
What Is PPC?
PPC is practically the short version of “pay-per-click advertising” and it refers to ads that you see on search engines like Google or social networks like Facebook. The reason for the name is that you pay for the ad only when it is clicked.
What Affects What?
There is a debate about whether SEO affects PPC or PPC affects SEO. When people are new, the first question asked is usually one of the following:
- Will SEO affect PPC ads?
- Will PPC ads affect SEO?
Technically speaking, the answer to both questions is negative. PPC ads will not affect the ranking of a website in search engines and rankings do not affect ads. You can easily use both PPC tools and SEO tools at the same time without worrying about PPC affecting SEO or SEO affecting PPC.
With all this in mind, PPC and SEO can work very well together in order to increase your overall marketing campaign. Some benefits need to be known by every single marketing professional out there.
Making PPC And SEO Work Together
The ways in which SEO and PPC can work together vary from one business to the next but there are more methods that can be used than what you are most likely envisioning. Here are two that are particularly effective at the moment.
1. Gaining Increased Search Engine Presence
When SEO is used, you have the possibility of ranking the pages of your site higher, maybe even at the number one position for some keywords. Then, as you buy PPC ads for the keyword that you also do SEO work for, the ad appears close to the top of the search engine results page for that specific keyword.
When you buy both ads and do SEO work for the same keyword, you set the brand in a great position as it dominates search results. This increases the possibility of getting clicks.
2. Recover Search Engine Clicks That Were Missed With PPC
Most marketers believe that when a brand ranks at the top position in search results for a specific keyword, there is no need to invest more money in PPC ads for the exact same keyword. There is this belief that there is absolutely no use of showing up on the same search engine page two times.
A Google Research study showed that as search ads are paused, around 89% of the traffic that is generated by the ads is not replaced with organic rankings. This practically means that when you pause PPC ads, traffic is negatively impacted, even if the site is ranked at number one in an organic way. When you rely on PPC ads, you recover interest and clicks from the searchers that were missed. Although you rank at the top of search engine results pages, PPC will help draw in web traffic from the individuals that look for your services or products, usually for not that much money.
