When we talk about digital marketing, you can take two main strategies. The first one is SEO, and the second one is Pay-Per-Click. Search engine optimization represents a free advertising strategy that will generate organic traffic and help your website rank higher. It should be your primary marketing approach. Conversely, PPC advertising is a paid method that will tremendously boost digital marketing. You can strategically invest in paid ads to support SEO and make it even better. Therefore, to succeed as a business, it is crucial to combine SEO and PPC for the best results. We are here to show you how!
Define the business goals and target audience
You cannot build a marketing campaign without knowing what you are trying to achieve or who your customer is. These two elements represent the base of every marketing effort.
An example of an SEO and PPC-oriented goal would be to increase website traffic, generate more leads, or work on your brand image. Every goal will have a different strategy, so know your priority.
You should do a SWOT analysis if you need help understanding how to prioritize goals. Analyze your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to better understand what your business needs.
When it comes to your target audience, you first need to understand who they are. Use various demographics to create buyer personas and map an ideal buyer journey. Once you have all this in place, you should create a different marketing strategy and a landing page for each buyer persona.
Use keywords that target both SEO and PPC
Keyword research has always been the most crucial step of digital marketing. If you are trying to combine SEO and PPC for the best results, you have to consider what keywords to use.
As an example, let’s say you are selling shoes. If you want to work on your SEO, you need to use the informational type of keywords:
- How to choose running shoes
- Running shoes for flat feet
These are good examples of informational keywords useful for an SEO strategy. When it comes to PPC advertising, you need to use keywords that have a commercial intent:
- Buy running shoes
- Running shoes near me
- Running shoe discount
If you want to combine both strategies, you need to come up with a mix of keywords that are both informational and have a commercial intent:
- Best running shoes
- Best budget running shoes
- Running shoes for heavy runners
- Best running shoes for beginners
Always use negative keywords
Negative keywords play a crucial role in both SEO and PPC advertising. Even though keywords are the primary strategy that helps with the better ranking of your website, they can also create irrelevant traffic. For example, if someone is searching for “used running shoes” or “second-hand running shoes,” they could easily find your website, even though that is not what you are selling.
To avoid this problem, you should create a list of negative keywords. If you add “used” or “second-hand” to the list, it will not lead them to your website whenever someone searches the term. That is an essential strategy because irrelevant traffic leads to a waste of money and time for your business. Every PPC ad that does not convert to a paying customer is a wasted opportunity.
Track and analyze your marketing efforts
There are many relevant metrics for tracking the success of SEO and PPC. Tracking and analysis are essential because it helps you to understand how your campaign is doing and if you need to change it.
When it comes to SEO, you want to keep track of the following:
- Organic traffic: This is the best way to tell if your free advertising methods work
- Bounce rate: Find out the percentage of people that leave your website immediately
- Keyword ranking: Understand how different keywords rank on the search engine result page
- Time on site: Find out how much time people spend on your website
For tracking the success of your PPC advertising, the most important metrics are:
- Click-through rate: CTR helps you to know how many times your ad was clicked versus how many times was shown
- Cost-Per-Click: This is the average cost for every click on your ad
- Quality score: This is an essential metric in Google AdWords that analyses various factors to determine the score and success of every ad
- Conversion rate: Through conversion rate, you can find out how many ad clicks are converted into paying customers
- Return on ad spending: One of the most critical metrics, ROAS, tells you if you are generating positive revenue from your paid advertising.
Diligently keep track of these metrics, and understand how your marketing campaigns perform. Do it immediately when you see an area where you could improve or make a change for the better. You don’t have the time or money to waste.
Do A/B testing
You will have to change your advertising campaigns based on your research. The best way to do it is through A/B testing. That is a very efficient strategy that will help you to do an SEO audit and improve different elements of your ads one at a time.
A/B testing means testing two versions of the same element and understanding which one performs better. You can apply this principle to any marketing element, including ad copy, landing pages, title tags, headings, meta descriptions, content, keywords, etc.
That is an excellent way to slowly make your marketing efforts more efficient. You need to improve each element and make it better after every A/B testing phase.
Combine SEO and PPC to scale and grow your business
There is no doubt that you should give your best to combine SEO and PPC. You should never rely on just one of the two as your primary strategy. SEO is very efficient, but it takes a lot of time. On the other hand, PPC shows much quicker results, but it costs money, and you can never succeed by just focusing on paid advertising. That is why you should mix both to achieve the best results.
John Sykes is a seasoned marketing expert for Movers Development with over 15 years in the industry. With a great passion for data-driven decision-making, he enjoys contributing to blogs and sharing his knowledge with young professionals.
