Which one is better, PPC, or SEO? Both of them are different forms of search marketing that are often pitted against one another. However, did you know that their strengths can complement each other’s pitfalls and improve your marketing strategy?
If you’re curious, read on as I’ll be covering what PPC and SEO are and how they both can benefit your website.
What Are The Pay-per-click and Search Engine Optimisation?
PPC and SEO are often used as search marketing strategies that aim to attract more users to a website. However, they differ in that PPC gains traffic through paid marketing, while SEO aims for organic visitors.
PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click. It’s an advertising method that lets people publish ads on an online platform. The ad owner will have to pay the publisher each time a user clicks his ad. You can find PPC ads on frequently visited websites, search engines like Google, and social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.
On the Google search engine results page (SERP), PPC ads are positioned on top of the organic results. They will appear when a user conducts a search.
Ads relevant to the search query are collected, and Google will then determine the advertisements that will be displayed and the order of their appearance. This decision is influenced by the quality of your ad and your cost-per-click bid.
Meanwhile, SEO is short for search engine optimization. It is a strategy used to get your content discovered by search engines. The main objective is to have the content rank higher on SERPs.
Unlike PPC, your website or page ranking on SERPs is determined by the content, website performance, responsiveness, and domain authority, among others.
Although PPC and SEO work differently, they both rely on keywords. A PPC ad will go live once a search query matches the keyword the advertisement campaign is assigned to. On the other hand, one of SEO’s best practices is how a content uses the main keywords to stay relevant to a search query.
Benefits from PPC and SEO Joining Forces
Despite the differences, PPC and SEO can be used together to optimize your marketing strategy. Here are several advantages of using them both.
Achieve Both Short-Term and Long-Term Goals using PPC and SEO in Same Time
PPC ads are positioned strategically on search engines and social media for one reason: to get people to click on the link and convert them into a customer or subscriber.
However, for small businesses, the cost of PPC ads can add up. So what happens when you stop paying for the ad space? There will be a decrease in conversions.
This makes PPC a more viable option for short-term marketing campaigns like promotions for new products or special events. Once they’re over, you no longer need the ads.
But what can you do to maintain long-term brand awareness? You can resort to SEO best practices. Once a website ranks high on SERPs, it will maintain its position for a while – as long as you keep creating and optimizing content.
Making your website SEO-friendly also helps in creating a good impression on your visitors. If your site is SEO-compatible, chances are your content is high-quality and credible. Also, it indicates that your website is fast and user-friendly.
Shared PPC Tools and Insights can be useful for Creating SEO Content
Using PPC ad platforms comes with some unique perks.
One, Google and Facebook Ads usually provide tools to improve your ad performance. Google Ads provides a keyword planner to develop a keyword targeting strategy. Facebook has Audience Insights for demographic research.
Two, you can get quicker results with PPC ads. It’s easier to find out what keywords are working, which demographic is responding to your ads, and how your campaigns perform. Also, you can find out which product or service is in demand based on your best-performing ad. You could also use an ads management plugin to find which is your best-performing ad.
The tools and results you get from PPC marketing can be useful for creating SEO-focused content. You can use the insights from analyzing your advertisement campaign results to improve your SEO strategy. Furthermore, since PPC marketing gets faster feedback, you can use them to test out keywords for SEO.
Using PPC and SEO Together will increase SERP Domination
When you have your PPC ads and SEO content assigned for the same keywords, both of them will likely appear on the same SERP. For instance, if you google “buy books online Australia,” you will get one paid ad and one organic result from Booktopia on the first page.
Having your ad and webpage in the same SERP is a huge benefit. First, you’re providing more than one link for users to access your site. In other words, you have doubled your probability of attracting new visitors to your business.
Second, dominating the SERP can give the impression that your website is the most relevant and helpful result for their search. This is because their search query leads them to more than one link to your site.
In the end, even if they choose not to click either of them, they will become more aware of your brand.
Retarget Previous Visitors
If your organic results are consistently on top, you will have better click-through rates (CTR). For instance, the top three results on SERP acquire up to 75.1% of the clicks.
However, sometimes users won’t get converted immediately after going through your page. Instead, they will compare your product, service, and offers with other websites and postpone their decision. Or, they will leave your site and never look back.
To those visitors again, set up a PPC ad that has been adjusted for them. You can use usability tests to find out how they once interacted with your website. Then modify the campaign’s headline and description into one that suits them better.
Wrapping Up
Though PPC and SEO function differently, combining them can maximize your search marketing strategy.
Instead of pitting them both, take advantage of using PPC and SEO together to achieve your goals. You can strategize your SEO content based on your PPC knowledge, increase chances for CTRs on SERPs, and retarget previous visitors from organic results with PPC ads.
Overall, keep experimenting with your content marketing and advertising to gain more traffic. Good luck!
Hello, Amazing Information and your work are very inspiring me and your information about SEO is very wonderful and so much helpful for me. Keep it up and Thank you very muchj.:)