Did you know that when PPC and SEO work together, you can significantly improve the performance of each? A Google study has shown that having an Organic listing under your Paid Ad can increase the Click-Through-Rate of said Paid Ad. The reverse can also be said – having a Paid Ad alongside your Organic listing can increase Click-through-rate on the Organic listing. This is a perfect example of the synergy created when utilizing both Organic and Paid Media.
PPC can supplement an already high performer to enhance its performance. SEO can offer a cheaper alternative to compete for highly competitive PPC terms. There are a few ways for marketers and advertisers to have PPC and SEO work together in a cohesive way.
Supplementing an already top SEO performer with a PPC counterpart
It’s a proven fact that when you’re ranking well in SEO, and ranking well on the same term in PPC, the results often outperform what would have been the sum of the two. Supplementing an SEO top performing landing page with a PPC ad, is a great way to start using SEO and PPC together strategically.
You will show with a larger portion of the search results page. SEO ranking takes a lot of time, and content writing. If you’re already successfully ranking well for a piece of content, and you want to see even better performance, bidding on the same term in a paid auction should be beneficial
Tackling Expensive PPC Terms with Cost-Efficient SEO Initiatives
If you’re finding a term to be successful in PPC, but expensive, that term might make a good focus for your next piece of content you want to rank for. An expensive term is likely a competitive SEO term as well. If you’re able to manage it, the payoff is substantial.
In Google Ads, you can see the specific queries users have searched to end up clicking on your ad. This paid search query data should give you an idea of frequent questions or pain points of your user. You can review these PPC searches when thinking about creating new content for SEO. Are any of the search queries questions that a new piece of content can help answer?
You can even look at paid ad copy. What PPC ad copy is working well, and can you expand on the ad text with a new piece of content?
SEO and Google Analytics Data can Help PPC campaigns
In Google Analytics, with Site Search enabled, you can see users’ searches while on your site. Site search data can shed some light on areas where users are having issues finding the content that they’re looking for. This could indicate a gap in your overall content, or an area that needs expanding on. These Site Searches could present some great ideas for additional Paid Keywords and relevant ad copy for stronger and more optimized PPC campaigns.
You could also use Google Analytics to build out a specific visitor audience and bid adjust on that group. Have they already organically came to your Contact Us page, but didn’t submit a form? Have they spent over 5 minutes reading an in-depth article about your product? These are examples of Google Analytics audiences you could build and import to Google Ads. You can then adjust the bids if users belong in these audiences, and adjust the messaging as well.
Final Thoughts
PPC Hero has a great article proposing a “Share of SERP” metric. This article highlights how relevancy is truly specific to the user searching. Results are no longer as siloed to a specific medium. Brands need to consider their overall presence on the SERP (organic, paid, shopping, video), instead of focusing on each channel separately.
Here at VSSL, we agree that marketers need to consider the SERP in a more holistic view. Knowing how PPC and SEO can work together should benefit your online presence in more ways than one. Each of these two channels offer clues on how to be successful in the other if you know where to look. Utilizing both allows you to take a larger share of the SERP, and improve brand recognition and performance.