SEO and PPC are two sides of the same coin. One helps you raise your website’s search rankings organically over time, while the other puts it in front of potential customers immediately. Instead of choosing one over the other, your company could be getting better results by using both.
Although there are a lot of similarities between SEO and PPC, the benefits vary. Your preferred option will depend on the size of your budget and your specific goals, but you’ll find it takes less time and effort to reap the benefits of one strategy when you combine it with the other. Keep reading to find out how.
What Are the Benefits of SEO and PPC?
One of the reasons PPC and SEO work so well together is because they leverage the power of search in complementary ways. SEO is an effective long-term strategy because it offers:
- More Website Traffic — The higher your site ranks, the more clicks it generates. This, in turn, increases conversions, revenues and ROI.
- Brand Awareness — When you optimize your site for search engines, your site appears more frequently in searches, reaching more potential customers and increasing your company’s visibility and familiarity.
- Cost-effective Marketing — Unlike an ad campaign, SEO is ongoing. The dollars you spend on your strategy today can continue to pay off for weeks or even months to come.
Pay-per-click campaigns can run over a long or short time, but the benefits occur right away, such as:
- Flexibility — Regardless of your target audience, budget or keyword strategy, a PPC campaign will fit nicely into your marketing plan.
- Targeting — Because ad placement is based on search behavior, a PPC ad reaches potential customers at the moment they’re in the market for your products or services.
- Accountability — Unlike traditional ad rates, which are based on the number of potential views, PPC ad rates are based on the number of actual clicks, which makes it easier to generate a good return on investment.
How Does One Tactic Benefit the Other?
So SEO and PPC offer different benefits, which complement each other well. However, they’re similar enough that data from one can inform the other. How can they work together so your campaign gets the best of both? By focusing on these elements:
- Timeline — A PPC campaign can last a few days or weeks, but the results are immediate. An SEO strategy, on the other hand, takes longer to implement, but the effects can last for months. By using both strategies, you enjoy both short-term and long-term benefits.
- Keywords — Although the right keywords depend on campaign goal or target audience, there’s a lot of overlap between the right keywords for PPC and SEO strategies. If you measure the performance of each keyword in your SEO strategy, you can apply the findings towards your next PPC campaign and vice versa.
- Cost — If you rely solely on PPC to attract new customers, you could spend a lot of money on a short-term boost in traffic. When combined with an SEO strategy, your site will be more visible to potential customers whether you’re running an ad campaign or not.
- Targeting — The point of both PPC and SEO is to get your site in front of people who are actively searching for what it offers. Of course, you need data to prove whether you’re on the right track. Data from ad campaigns can provide this data, which you can then apply towards your SEO strategy. Doing so will help you reach your most loyal, viable and profitable prospects.
There’s some overlap between SEO and PPC, but that’s no reason to implement one and ignore the other. In fact, incorporating both into your Internet marketing strategy is a surefire way to increase visibility, revenues and site rank.