Here's Why PPC and SEO Are Complementary (not Conflicting) Marketing Strategies
In 2009, an Old El Paso TV ad with an adorable young girl helped solve one of the more contentious arguments of our time: hard vs. soft taco shells. The solution? “¿Por qué no los dos?”, or “Why not both?”. Taco shells aren’t going to be the basis of everyone’s marketing strategy, but somewhere down the line, you’ve likely also encountered a debate just as fierce: Either go all-in on SEO-optimized content or swan-dive your budget into a pay-per-click (PPC) strategy. To that, we say, “Why not both?”
For some time, most marketers took an “either-or” approach to SEO and PPC. The past few years have seen a more refined approach develop as marketing specialists now see the value in integrating PPC and SEO to help encourage a boost in traffic and sales. As a small business owner, you can use both an SEO and a PPC strategy in tandem. When you use the data to influence how you proceed with each strategy, there’s no reason for them to operate in conflict.
What Does the Data Say About PPC and SEO?
Putting personal feelings aside, data really sets the record straight on the strengths and weaknesses of SEO and PPC marketing strategies. And when we take a bird’s eye view of both strategies, we can begin to see how piecing them together under one strategy helps shore up the inherent weaknesses for both.
Let’s start with PPC.
Both business owners and expert marketers recognize that paid ads are an important marketing strategy when executed well. However, people are far less likely to click on paid ads, especially since 77% of search engine users say they can confidently recognize ads. Given most people doubt the objectivity of paid ads, the average click-through rate (CTR) for Google Ads is just under 4%. That means only 4% of people who see an advertisement on a Google search result will go on to click it.
However, the data isn’t all bad. The top 3 ads on a results page get over 40% of the clicks, so paying for ads can not only get your brand name out there, it can help drive traffic, especially if your ad is properly optimized under Google’s quality score.
People trust organic SEO.
The numbers for organic SEO don’t lie. Over 90% of the clicks for keyword searches go to the organic results on a page, not to the paid ads. Although Google slightly altered the look of paid ads in 2019, people still opt for results that aren’t ads.
Still, getting into the top 3 of a keyword search remains as important as ever. And getting on the first page is almost essential to getting any clicks at all for your SEO-optimized pages. Less than 1% of people using Google ever click over to the second page on any given result.
Taking that information into perspective, the biggest weakness of PPC is its click-through rate. Everyone’s going to see your ad, but few people are going to click on it. For organic SEO, the biggest weakness is getting onto the first results page. According to a 2020 Ahrefs study, it can take a year or more just to get an organic post onto the first page, while nearly 60% of organic results in the top 10 results are 3+ years old.
Organic SEO takes time, while PPC can sometimes feel like a waste of resources (even when it’s doing well). But you can use them together for greater impact.
Not sure how to get started with PPC or SEO marketing for your small business? Contact Madison Ave Media for a complimentary consultation.
How to Combine PPC and SEO Strategies
You don’t need to sit on the fence when it comes to deciding which digital marketing strategy to use. PPC and organic SEO are far more complementary than many small business owners realize. Here are a few ways you can synchronize them for your strategic keyword planning.
1. More visibility for your keywords and brand
Most people are always going to be leery of paid ads. There’s not much you can do to get around that. But even when they don’t click the link, most people who make a search will at least see that ad. When you have paid ads across multiple channels, you increase how frequently people see your brand and your message.
Once your SEO-optimized pages start ranking, you’ll have brand and message recognition in two places. There are occasions where your paid ad and your SEO-optimized pages can appear on the same search result. That gives you more real estate on a Google search for your targeted keywords, meaning a huge increase in your effective Click-Through-Rate for the keywords you’re targeting.
Then there’s the importance of internal linking. For the sake of fairness, Google doesn’t let paid ads benefit your site’s SEO ranking. But if you add links to your SEO-optimized pages to the posts you’ve boosted with paid ads, some of that traffic can filter down. The more people that visit a page from any source, the better it does from a ranking perspective.
Plus, Google tends to rank websites higher when they have a well organized internal linking structure that runs deeply between the lower-level pages (e.g., links between blog posts, but not links from a blog post to a homepage or contact us page.)
2. More extensive data insights
The data you gather through PPC helps you understand what type of wording gets the most clicks. Consequently, the same style of messages that work for ads also works for organic search. People are just more likely to avoid those results that say “ad” next to them. If you get a good strategy going with your paid ads on search engines and social media, it can be instructive for the type of messages that will work well for your SEO-optimized content.
Notably, what works for SEO is not always what works for PPC, and vice versa. But there are many similarities that you can transfer from PPC to SEO. Because of the way Google ranks paid ads in a result (using the company’s Quality Score), ads do better when they:
Are more relevant to the keyword
Answer a query more directly
Deliver a message or answer the searcher was looking for
Additionally, Google ranks an ad higher if the associated landing page provides more value and a good user experience (measured in many ways, but especially through the Bounce Rate).
Consequently, all of those factors also matter for SEO! If you get a killer PPC strategy in place for your keywords, you can apply what’s working to an organic, SEO-optimized page for the same or a related keyword. Since you can launch paid ads quickly, you can get data and insights far more rapidly, making it easier to rework your longer-term SEO strategy around what messaging appears to have a better impact on your CTR.
A Match Made in Digital Marketing Heaven
Our recommendations above are just the tip of the iceberg. There are far more ways that PPC and SEO strategies can be utilized together and result in better overall ROI for your digital marketing. For most small businesses, the bigger question is going to be one of timing. Should you launch your ad strategy first, or start with an SEO strategy? When should you start using data insights from PPC to the benefit of your organic SEO? What data matters most for both?
Answering these broad digital marketing questions can be difficult if you lack the time or experience, but Madison Ave Media can help get started. We specialize in PPC strategies for multiple sites, including search engines like Google, and social media sites like Facebook and Instagram. We can help you develop and improve your short- and long-term SEO strategies, with website optimization and content development. Contact us today for a complimentary consultation.