How do SEO and PPC Work Together?
October 28th 2021 | By Steve Grant
We recently explored the question of whether organic SEO is better than PPC in the long term. But is there a way the two can work together for multiple gain?
Most online marketing strategies will segregate paid advertising from organic SEO, with separate teams running their own individual campaigns. But research by Google has revealed that in actual fact, PPC and SEO can work very well together.
What is PPC and SEO marketing?
Pay-per-click advertising drives traffic to a website through paid advertisements. Using the likes of Google Ads, you can target specific keywords and pay to ensure your brand appears at the top of the search results. With PPC advertising, you’ll only pay when your advert is actually clicked.
SEO marketing revolves around organic web traffic. In other words, the traffic that arrives at your website through the links that appear when someone searches for your products or services. Google decides the order of the search results courtesy of its algorithms. A good SEO agency will know just how to get your site to the top of the search results, although this does require investment in terms of both cost and time. But unlike PPC advertising, when someone clicks your organic link, you won’t need to pay.
Does PPC help SEO, or vice versa?
There have been various studies that have concluded that SEO impacts upon the volume of clicks received by PPC ads. Google has discovered that when a website has strong organic search results, their click-through rate for their PPC ads on the same search engine results page will be positively affected. Further research revealed that this can also work in reverse, i.e. PPC can help SEO.
How do SEO and PPC work together to boost online visibility?
PPC can indirectly benefit SEO results in a number of ways, according to Moz.
Firstly, users who see a PPC ad may be more likely to click on an organic search result, simply because a wider presence in the search results inspires greater trust.
Next, if users have previously seen your strong presence in the advertised listings, they could be more likely to click on an organic listing, and then convert. Again through built-up trust, and increased brand exposure.
It is also said that searches with high paid traffic can impact positively upon organic click through rate, and that links in paid ads can result in a boost to website traffic.
Google also uses traffic and website engagement within its ranking algorithms. So, if your PPC adverts are effectively driving traffic to your website, then its organic ranking could experience an indirect benefit. Of course, you would have to ensure that all of your other ranking signals are in order too, because this is just one piece of the very complex puzzle that influences how Google orders websites in the search results.
All in all, if your PPC and organic SEO campaigns are going to work in harmony, they will need to be collectively managed by a cohesive team that is working towards shared goals.
If you are considering the best strategy for increasing your online visibility, talk to Figment. We’ll evaluate your business goals and target audiences, and then tailor a strategy to ensure you get the results you need, when you need them. We look forward to helping you achieve the online visibility you need to grow your business, whether that’s through organic SEO, PPC, or a combination of both.