If you want your business to exist online, digital marketing is the best option for you. And if you have the best digital marketing strategy it can help you to get noticed by people who are looking for services like yours on search engines like Google and Bing. When it comes to getting seen on search engine results pages, there are both paid and organic options to explore, in the form of pay per click (PPC) advertising, and search engine optimization (SEO). Many experts might say that you must choose between SEO and PPC, but the fact is that you would need both.
One of the most common questions that are asked to our Internet Marketing Service experts is if budgets should be assigned to SEO or PPC or split between both? So, deciding where it would be best to invest your budget can be a challenging task for businesses. So, the big question is: Is it better to use pay-per-click to buy your way to the top of the search results or invest in an organic SEO approach. To make a decision on which strategy to use, you need to consider the benefits and drawbacks of both SEO and PPC, and how they can work together to drive growth for your business. In this guide, we will dive deep into each of these strategies, also understand how it works, and how SEO and PPC can work together to help you get more customers.
What is SEO?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the method of optimizing your web presence, including your website and offsite factors, to help you rank better on search engines for targeted keywords or phrases. To succeed at driving more visibility from SEO, you have to optimize your website properly. You must ensure that the search engines can crawl your site, understand your content, index it, and demonstrate that your site is a significant authority. Always keep in mind that, to survive in the digital world, getting noticed is a must, that’s why good SEO is very important for your digital presence.
For example, a company that wants to boost its website’s ranking for “travel bags” has to write detailed product descriptions with this phrase, also write its Meta descriptions and page titles to include this phrase, and obtain links from travel-related websites.
What is PPC?
Pay-per-click or PPC ads refer to the advertisements that appear at the top and along the sides of searches on Google, Bing, and Yahoo! It is the paid advertising technique on the search engines that usually runs through Google Ads, Bing Ads, YouTube ads, display ads, Gmail ads, and more. It is called “pay-per-click” because the businesses that put them, only pay for the ads when they are clicked otherwise they don’t pay anything. PPC ads typically represent a cost-effective way to attract potential customers. However, the bidding cost changes on specific words and phrases. Some keywords can be very affordable, while some may cost up to hundreds of dollars per click, simply because of the high level of competition.
How SEO and PPC can work together? To improve your website
SEO and PPC both deal with internet traffic in order to increase leads, market exposure, and conversions. It’s not too difficult to believe that they could work well together. But would it be worth investing in both strategies? And if yes, then what’s the benefit of it? At YashaaGlobal, a Digital Marketing Jacksonville, we came across a few ways, in which combining SEO and PPC could benefit your overall marketing strategy, improve your website, increase leads, and boost your revenue.
1. SEO and PPC increases search engine presence
As you already know, optimizing the website with SEO increases the chance of ranking the website on Google, or even in the #1 position, for the keywords that you are targeting. Additionally, bidding high enough on PPC advertisements for the same keyword allows your ad to appear near the top of the list when someone searches for that keyword.
If you do both of these strategies for that specific keyword, that is, optimize your website and invest in PPC ads, you have to ensure that your brand influences the search results, and you have a greater chance at capturing those valuable clicks.
2. Maximizing SERP coverage
When a website runs pay-per-click ads, they appear at the top of the search engine result page, making it the first thing that users see. When together with SEO efforts, a brand can consume a large portion of the SERPs, displaying advertisements at the top and organic listings below. Hence, if a visitor skips the ad section and goes straight to the organic results, they will find the business there as well. This allows websites to gain double the exposure they would get with only one of these strategies, thereby raising the chances that the user will click-through to the brand’s website.
Furthermore, given that a particular company is so well-represented in the SERPs, this provides customers with more confidence that the company is a reputable one that provides high-quality products or services. By combining PPC and SEO, companies will more easily guide prospects to their website and encourage engagement among customers.
3. PPC allows you to test new keywords for SEO
Both PPC and SEO are heavily relying on keyword optimization to surface for relevant searches. Search engine optimization will take a long time, analysis, and expense. As a Jacksonville SEO Company, There are times when we consider focus on SEO activities on a certain keyword but aren’t sure whether it will pay off. PPC is one way to “test” the viability of a keyword for SEO purposes.
Simply choose a keyword you think you have a good chance of ranking highly for, that is one you think is highly related to your products or services, and purchase PPC advertising for it. For a while, keep an eye on the performance and see how the site performs. If it performs well, this may be a sign that you should start optimizing your site for that keyword. And if your PPC campaigns fall flat, you may avoid SEO for this keyword.
4. PPC helps you recover lost search engine clicks
You might assume that if your brand is ranking top of the search results for a specific keyword organically, you don’t need to purchase a PPC ad for that same keyword. A Google survey found that when search ads for a keyword were paused, around 89% of traffic generated by these ads was not replaced by the organic rankings. So this means that even if your site is naturally ranking #1, but pausing your PPC ads might have a negative impact on your traffic.
By using PPC, you are recovering clicks and interest from users that you might have otherwise unnoticed. Even if you aren’t ranking #1 naturally, PPC can help you attract traffic from people searching for your products or services, and often for a relatively low cost.
5. Remarketing strategies allow you to reach previous users
Let’s say your website is ranking pretty well as a result of your SEO efforts, and you are getting a fair amount of visitors, but they are just shoppers or possible leads who are taking their time to decide. You can merge SEO with a form of PPC to get these visitors back to your site to complete their purchase at a later time.
For example, if someone is looking for office goods on your website, but needs some time to think about it, you can buy ad space from a website in Google’s network to show them ads for the same office goods later. This will work as a reminder for them to return to your site and complete the purchase. By combining SEO and PPC in this way, you can reach previous customers and encourage them to return to complete a purchase or convert into a lead, whereas without remarketing they may have completely forgotten about you.
6. Higher brand awareness
When a consumer clicks on PPC advertisement, they are taken to a landing page where they learn more about a company and its services. From there, they could go further into a website to get a better sense of the brand. In other cases, they might get distracted and leave the page. When prospective customers become more familiar with a brand and they are more likely to engage with its organically listed content, it results in improved traffic and conversions. Also, PPC ads help to create awareness for a business, even if visitors do not convert right away, it can result in more organic traffic in the future. These are only a few ways that SEO and PPC benefit each other.
Conclusion:
PPC and SEO are two distinct aspects of marketing, but they should not be considered as independent efforts. Instead, combining SEO and PPC is a perfect way to attract attention and generate leads for your business. If you are just getting started on your website or have been online for decades, there is a place for both SEO and PPC in your marketing strategy. So, stop getting confused and get started with both SEO and PPC. When PPC and SEO are used together, they will provide more analytics and insight than using one method alone. That’s the biggest benefit of a combination of SEO and PPC. Apart from this, you will also see an increase in brand awareness, website traffic, and leads. A local SEO company like Jacksonville SEO service can help you will help you deliver better results if you have a local business in any specific area.
