SEO and PPC often seem to be very distinct categories. SEO involves outwitting the search engines, and doing things that will get you ahead of other sites. PPC means playing by their rules, and paying to be ahead of other sites.
SEO and PPC both have their fans and detractors, but what many people don’t realize is that they work best together.
* SEO gets long-term results, but if you need to get something immediately, SEO and PPC together combine a quick hit with long-term growth.
* PPC ads give you good data, fast. Want to know whether you should optimize for “expensive watch” or “luxury watch”? Try a PPC campaign first, to see which one converts more visitors into customers. Then use SEO to get long-term traffic.
* SEO is long-lasting, but PPC is instant and temporary. If you want to show results right away, use PPC. If you don’t want them to disappear the minute you stop paying for them, SEO is the way to go.
So you do SEO and PPC work together? You can start by including PPC in your research process: when you come up with a list of keywords to target, use PPC spending to estimate your click throughs. You don’t necessarily want to go for the highest-converting keyword, or to shy away from the ones that cost the most.
When you’re choosing how to implement an SEO and PPC campaign, there are plenty of concerns to take into account. You don’t want to blow through your budget by spending your marketing dollars targeting the same consumer twice over, but you don’t want to underinvest in both and miss out on the combined benefits. Instead, take a moderate path when you come up with an SEO and PPC strategy: buy enough PPC traffic to know how users behave, then use that knowledge to do your SEO right.
Even after you’ve established your site’s reputation, PPC may be the way to go. It’s a great way to test out new marketing ideas or new product lines, and once you dominate organic results, adding paid results can still enhance your total returns. Like every other marketing decision, in the end it boils down to analyzing the numbers.