Yin and Yang: How SEO & PPC Work Together For Your Business (6 minute read)

How SEO & PPC Work Together For Your Business

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is an integral part of a comprehensive digital marketing campaign. It consists of two key elements: SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and PPC (Pay-Per-Click) or paid search marketing.

While SEO and PPC are drastically different, they work together organically. These two approaches complement each other, creating a powerful digital marketing campaign. Even though it's possible to achieve certain marketing goals by using only one of these tactics, staying ahead of the competition involves taking advantage of both.

Let's take a closer look at how SEO and PPC can work together for your business.

SEO vs PPC

While the main goals of SEO and PPC tactics are the same (lead generation, conversion, retention, and brand awareness), their approaches are different.

SEO focuses on achieving high spots on SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) organically. PPC allows you to place your ads on top of all search results by tweaking a few settings and making a payment.

The main differences between the two approaches are:

• Cost — the website traffic you get from SEO is free while PPC driven traffic comes with a price for each click.

• Time — traffic from PPC ads can start flowing immediately while SEO efforts may only become obvious after several months.

• Duration — PPC campaign stops working when you stop paying. SEO provides long-lasting and consistent results.

SEO and PPC work simultaneously, achieving short-term and long-term digital marketing goals.

How SEO and PPC Complement Each Other

Here are a few ways SEO and PPC complement and improve each other within one marketing campaign.

1. Testing Keywords

Keywords are the main elements of any digital marketing campaign. While not time-consuming, a keyword search can be tough and not always successful. When the company is just starting out, it needs a quick way to figure out which keywords work and which don't.

That's where PPC comes in. By running different ads and studying paid search reports, you can figure out which keywords work the best for your business. Then you can implement these keywords into your SEO campaign.

If you decide to test keywords with SEO tactics, the effort can be extremely time-consuming and complicated. You would need to create and adjust content and then wait for months to see clean results. With PPC, you can get the data within a week.

2. Retargeting Visitors

When your SEO campaign is in full swing with traffic flowing to your website organically, you expect to see high conversion rates. However, only about 2% of users convert after the first visit to your website.

They may come looking for valuable information and find it, only to leave for further searches and never come back. If you don't want your efforts to go to waste, you have to bring these customers back. That's where PPC comes in.

By using retargeting tactics, you can put paid ads in front of your potential customers after they leave your site. This way you remind visitors about your products and services as they browse other websites.  

3. Improving Visibility

With a high-quality PPC campaign, you can dominate the area above search results. However, users are known to skip over the ads and go to the organic results first. Meanwhile, others start clicking on the top results immediately, ignoring anything that's below the ad area.

If you manage to get your website on top of the SERPs with SEO and put your paid ads above the search results, you dominate a big part of the first search result page. This maximises your chances of getting the clicks and converting your target audience.

By dominating the ad space and top SERP area, you don't just increase visibility, you improve brand awareness efforts, thus achieving several marketing goals simultaneously.

4. Leveraging Keyword Use

Not all keywords are created equal. When creating a PPC campaign, you may not have a sufficient budget to bid on high-cost and high-volume keywords. However, they are still highly important for your overall marketing effort.

That's where SEO comes in. You can use these keywords in your SEO campaign to achieve organic results.

By integrating both SEO and PPC into your campaign, you can take full advantage of all the necessary keywords to drive traffic and achieve valuable conversions.

5. Optimising Campaign Costs

Some companies mistakenly believe that SEO is a cost-cutting measure. While it doesn't require a formidable initial budget, SEO needs time to start working. Meanwhile, PPC starts working the moment you set it up and make a payment.

If you want to speed up your SEO campaign while cutting PPC costs, you need to use these two tactics together:

• PPC starts bringing visitors to your website while you are optimising it for organic traffic.

• SEO establishes a long-term foundation for a successful organic campaign.

As soon as you stop your PPC campaign, the traffic stops coming. However, your SEO efforts will continue generating results for months to come.

When you have a well-established, content-filled website, it only needs timely maintenance to generate leads and achieve conversions. With PPC, you need to make daily investments.

6. Learn Valuable Information

When you are just starting your SEO efforts, you need details about your target audience. You can get this data from a well-structured paid social campaign.

With paid social media advertising, you can target highly specific segments of your target audience. By analysing campaign results, you can discover new data about your potential buyers and implement it in your SEO tactics.

The Takeaway

Whether you are just starting your digital marketing campaign or want to streamline existing efforts, achieving top results isn't possible with just one approach. Both SEO and PPC are integral to the campaign's success. They enhance and replace each other when necessary, giving your company a better shot at outrunning the competition.

SEO and PPC are like yin and yang. These two seemingly contrary tactics complement each other perfectly to become a driving force behind a comprehensive marketing campaign.

Would you like to learn more about tweaking your digital marketing efforts? Drop us a message today!