Getting your digital marketing strategy right is paramount to success in today’s digital landscape. With consumers increasingly using digital devices to connect with and purchase from companies, it is important to get the balance of your digital marketing efforts right.
Search marketing is crucial for both growing and established companies looking to attract customers. Search engine optimisation (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) are two ways to boost your search rankings.
But what are the key differences? And how can an integrated strategy support your digital marketing strategy?
SEO vs PPC
The key difference between SEO and PPC is that one ranks on search engines organically while the other is paid for.
PPC search ads appear at the top of a search engine results page, above the listings generated through SEO. Traffic that comes to your website via PPC ads will cost you money. Traffic from organic searches is free.
SEO rankings can be harder to obtain in isolation. An integrated PPC and SEO strategy is usually the best way to generate larger traffic numbers.
Every business is different, so you will need your own tailored PPC strategy that complements your other online activity.
Combining your SEO and PPC efforts
When developing your search strategy, there is a lot to consider. Creating an integrated PPC and SEO strategy has many benefits. Some of the ways an integrated search strategy works include:
Increasing your search engine presence
If you already have high-ranking SEO results, a strategic approach to your PPC efforts can increase your search engine presence even more.
Essentially, your PPC and SEO results will be shown on the same page, helping you dominate the search results page.
Recovering missed clicks
Organic search rankings do not automatically replace paid ad clicks when a PPC campaign ends. In fact, in a Google study, nearly 90% of ad-generated traffic was not replaced by organic search results.
Continuing to integrate your search efforts will help you to capture lost or missed clicks.
Reaching previously interested users
Using tracking data, PPC can be used to retarget users who have found your site through organic search. Although there are proposed changes to cookie tracking, this is still a valuable source of data.
Remarketing to interested users has become a key part of a digital marketing strategy in recent years.
Testing new keywords
Doing SEO properly often involves heavy investment in time, research, financial investment. PPC allows you to test the keywords quickly and inexpensively that you want to use in your organic search strategy.
For small businesses with a limited ad budget, this is an ideal way to save cash, inform strategy and boost search rankings.
Growing your analytics data pool
PPC and SEO will each provide their own analytics data to inform your ongoing digital marketing strategy. By combing the two you will have access to a greater pool of analytics data.
In turn, this combination will help you to make smarter decisions about your digital marketing efforts.
Integrating your E-commerce pages
Linking specific product pages through your PPC strategy can help you to boost conversions. In fact, integrating E-commerce pages is one of the key ways PPC can help boost sales.
As SEO does not allow you to target specific product pages as accurately, this feature is good to complement your search strategy.
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