Like it or hate it, there is no way to get your website to work as a revenue earner and to get traffic without the use of digital marketing techniques. These rely mainly on SEO and PPC. Should you go one way or the other?
Findings indicate that an optimal blend of SEO and PPC will give the best returns.
SEO
Search engine optimization is complex, involving onsite and off techniques. Your SEO strategy is best designed and implemented with the help of SEO services to ensure maximum returns. Do not think of it as a one time expense. It has to be a sustained and ongoing activity to get results and can set you back by about $ 500 to $ 5000 per month. The results will show after six months. Can you wait that long? In this context, you may assume Search Engine Marketing or PPC is better at first glance.
PPC
- The good thing about pay per click campaigns is that your ad shows up in contextual searches, increasing chances of click-through. If someone searches for, say, washing machines, and you sell washing machines then your PPC ad using the keyword “washing machine” is likely to be displayed on search result pages. You get immediate results. The other side of the coin is that if you stop PPC then your visibility vanishes.
- 85% of customers use searches to find products. Whether it displays on the first page or inner pages depends on your bidding, PPC strategy, and Google Adwords management, areas in which you will benefit by roping in PPC specialists.
- It can also be expensive with big advertisers spending about $ 100000 and more. However, for every dollar spent, you get two in return, justifying the cost, provided PPC is done right.
- This is further complicated by the way Google works in displaying knowledge graphs, choice of keywords, and how competitors design their strategy, a total of over 200 factors to rank sites. So we are back to search engine optimization as a buttressing force for PPC.
Where do you go from here? The better strategy is to blend both for a cocktail mixture leading to success in a short time.
Keywords
What the two strategies have in common is Keywords. Keywords used in PPC influence and are influenced by those used in search engine optimization.
- The trick is to use a researched set of keywords in organic searches and for paid ads. The result is a higher click through rate. The ratio could be about 8% for paid and 5% for organic.
- Combining keywords across both campaigns leads to reduced cost per click. Mix the two and you have a better quality score in the process. Keywords in richer organic content and optimized landing pages appear to influence exposure and rankings as well as click-through.
- Another strategy is to keep analyzing outcomes and then reduce CPC costs by reducing bids and dropping ad positioning in relation to page ranking in organic searches.
Which keywords to use will be influenced by reports you can gain through the Google Adwords management program. The auction analytics also shows what keywords competitors use.
An eye on the competition
Google’s analytics will prove helpful in picking the right set of keywords to use for both campaigns. You also get to know which competitor domains are bidding for specific keywords and you can pick the same or lower bid ones to reduce cost and thus do more.
- Based on reports you can plan campaigns and budget for PPC, leading to cost reduction and yet delivering better returns. The budget can be determined based on a goal such as a client acquisition at a certain estimated cost per lead. The campaign can use lower bid keywords not used by competitors and thus attract a new set of customers who may be using those terms to find your products.
- Which regions do competitors target and at what time? You can refine locations and timings to reduce the cost of PPC. At the same time, spread organic content to create backlinks specific to those regions.
Paid search marketing influences organic strategy and professional SEO services will follow procedures that reduce cost and maximize outcomes in a short time.
Paid influence on organic
You design an organic campaign choosing a set of keywords and you get to know the result after a couple of months. Instead, the smarter way would be to follow the above tactic and pick keywords based on which you launch a paid campaign first.
- Analyze data from the paid ad in terms of ad copy and keywords. These will serve as inputs for onsite optimization relating to meta description, title, and content. The same ad material and keywords can find their way into articles, blog posts, and other content you will use to generate backlinks.
- Should you be running an eCommerce site you can climb up the search result ladder by using Google’s facility to link product pages to ads, and, on the other side, you create informative product-related organic content. This has a positive impact on searchers. It also means less effort, more pointed content and better rankings syncing organic rankings with PPC ads.
Budgeting is necessary to determine the intensity of activity across both channels. You can simply allocate a fixed amount and leave it at that or work with SEO to have a flexible plan based on future earnings resulting from the campaigns. Future earnings depend on efficacy. Efficacy depends on blending both, as shown above.
To sum it up, it is a good idea to start with defined goals. For some businesses, it may be conversion and revenue generation. For others, it may be the dissemination of information or branding or just to find out how many visitors spend how much time on your site.
In any case, returns are a must and it is axiomatic that you should get maximum for minimum outgo. Blending both requires technical capability and for this, it is best to engage expert SEO services for organic and PPC strategy development and parallel implementation.
