Many people think of PPC and SEO as two separate strategies and often ask if they should use SEO or PPC. Often it seems as if SEO and PPC are two separate departments that are fighting for funds and can’t get along. However there is another (healthier) way to look at this. PPC and SEO can actually compliment each other and work together to strengthen your online marketing.
So what are the best ways to combine SEO and PPC you ask?
Here are 5 strategies you should know about:
1. One great strategy is to use PPC to test keywords before you optimize your website for them. This can be great for competitive keywords that would take a lot of time and effort to rank for organically. The goal is to find the best performing keyword before you start your SEO. Also if have a large keyword list from your keyword research you can use PPC to narrow down the list by testing each phrase and find the best ones for your SEO campaign.
2. PPC can also help to expand your reach online. You can’t possibly be number one for all the relevant keyword combinations in your market, especially if you look at keyword keyword phrases with 3 words or more. PPC allows you to rank for all those long tail phrases you can’t address through your on site SEO or just don’t have the time to optimize for. In case you find some great performers you can always decide to add these to your organic SEO strategy.
3. You can reach different target markets. Is your website SEO setup for a specific target market? PPC can help you to test other target markets quick and easy. Just setup a new landing page and use PPC to get targeted traffic. This way you can find out if it makes sense to add a section to your website for the new target market or maybe even setup a new separate website for it. Never switch your on site SEO to a different target audience without proper data. If you want you can even test new products and find the best online marketing approach before starting your SEO campaign.
4. Sometime you need fast traffic for a contest, event or anything else. PPC can help you to speed things up short term. If you only have a limited amount of time to promote something you can setup your SEO and then use PPC to drive short term traffic. SEO usually takes longer to build stable high rankings, so with the proper budget you can drive a lot of targeted traffic to your website almost instantly by using PPC.
5. Good on site SEO will improve your Google AdWords quality score and you will pay less per click. This way you can get more results out of your PPC budget and use the money you save to build more long term organic rankings for your website. If you have a large PPC campaign optimize different landing pages on your website according to best SEO practice. This will make Google happy and you might be able to outrank your competitors on PPC with a considerable lower CPC.
As you can see there are many ways to combine PPC and SEO to improve your online marketing. If you want to learn more about how to apply these different strategies to your business feel free to contact us.
Tags: adwords quality score, combine SEO and PPC, google ppc test, keyword research, long tail keywords, ppc and seo, ppc testing, ways to combine ppc and seo
