Your marketing goals for your business very likely include ensuring that you have a strong online presence and driving traffic to your business that turns into conversions. To achieve these, you will certainly need to implement a good organic SEO strategy. Likewise, you may also know that you may get faster results using a Google PPC strategy. But the question is how do you strike a balance between SEO and PPC? This article sheds more light on Google PPC Vs. Organic SEO: Finding the right balance for your business.
What is organic SEO?
Organic Search Engine Optimization refers to the process of optimizing a website or channel for increased visibility in search engine results pages (SERP). It is organic because it’s a natural (free) process rather than a paid one (using ads).
The organic SEO process includes the implementation of SEO techniques to rank high on SERPs and reel in organic traffic. Some SEO techniques that you apply here include keyword research, content creation and marketing, website optimization, and backlinking.
What is Google PPC?
Google Pay-Per-Click advertising is an online marketing strategy that involves businesses paying a specific amount for each click on their ad. In other words, you are buying clicks and visits to your site instead of gaining those clicks naturally or organically as with SEO. This ad opportunity is provided by Google (hence the name Google PPC or Google Ads). On the other hand, Microsoft Ads (formerly Bing Ads) is another platform for PPC campaigns that provides targeted advertising opportunities using user queries on the search engine. There are other forms of PPC advertising using platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn.
Why you need to balance your SEO and PPC strategy
The general objective of an organic SEO strategy is to establish a strong online presence that converts to higher rankings, especially in the long term. Such rankings can then bring in consistent traffic without the associated costs of PPC.
On the other hand, Google PPC differentiates itself from organic SEO by providing immediate visibility and quicker results. You can particularly run Google PPC campaigns for marketing activities such as product launches and seasonal promotions.
- PPC and SEO strategies are not mutually exclusive. You can run both of them to gain results that you may not very well achieve with either of them.
- Finding a balance between the two can help you gain a more comprehensive visibility overall. For example, you can run an organic SEO for the awareness stage of the buyer’s journey, and run targeted Google PPC ads for the decision-making stage.
- In addition, you can fill in the limitations of organic SEO by implementing Google PPC campaigns. For example, organic SEO may take time to generate results (such as several months to climb the rankings of SERPs). However, running a PPC campaign can help you generate immediate results.
- You can better refine your targeting and optimization tactics when you use integrated data from both SEO and PPC to inform your overall strategies.
- striking a balance between Google PPC and organic SEO can help your marketing campaign become more effective while maintaining an efficient budget. You can indeed eat your cake and have it by taking advantage of immediate opportunities (Google PPC) while sustaining long-term growth (organic SEO).
- Ultimately, a well-stricken balance between PPC and SEO helps you attract, engage, and convert your target users.
- If you fail to strike a balance between PPC and SEO, you may find yourself running out of budget to achieve your campaign goals. This is because costs can quickly add up when you’re running a pay-per-click model.
- Relying solely on PPC can be counter-productive because users sometimes ignore ads (due to ‘ad blindness’ or ‘ad fatigue‘).
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How to strike a balance between Google PPC and organic SEO
Here are some great tips to properly integrate Google PPC and organic SEO for maximum benefit.
Understand your business and campaign objectives
The marketing strategies that you go with should ultimately depend on your long and short-term goals. If you have short-term goals such as product launches, you may lean towards more PPC but if you aim to build your brand in the long term, you will need to do more organic SEO.
Performing good market research and competition analysis can help you decide whether you need to do an aggressive PPC campaign or not. In the same vein, your audience research can give you insights into user search behaviour and the right channels to use. In turn, this can inform your decision to use SEO to reach broader audiences and PPC to reach targeted segments.
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Be informed of your budget
Some considerations that you will likely need to make regarding budgeting include the following:
- First, evaluate the budget that you will need for both PPC and sustained SEO campaigns. Then decide how you will allocate budget resources based on its availability and the targeted ROI.
- You may need to regularly assess the cost-effectiveness of both strategies and adjust them appropriately according to the results you’re getting.
Run simultaneous SEO and PPC campaigns
You can dominate SERPs if you strategically run simultaneous SEO and PPC campaigns. Here, you will be hitting the dual targets of improved visibility and increased traffic/conversions. Who wouldn’t want to appear in both the top organic listings and the top ad spots?
Keep tracking and monitoring performances
You cannot do without tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) such as conversion rates, organic traffic, and click-through rates. Examples of some valuable analytics tools include Google Analytics and Google Search Console. Use them to measure the performance of your PPC and SEO campaigns.
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Your PPC analytics can inform your SEO strategy
Apply the improved insights that you gain from PPC campaigns to your organic SEO strategy. For example, you can use the feedback on keyword effectiveness in your SEO keyword optimization strategy.
Test long-term SEO strategies with PPC
Examples of what to test using PPC as a tool include keywords, ad copies, and strategies. For example, you can check out the most engaging ad copy variations and use the insight to update your website content and meta data.
You can repeatedly test alternate approaches to both your PPC and your SEO campaigns. Be ready to adapt to market feedback, trends, and changes in consumer behavior, or algorithm updates.
Balancing SEO and PPC strategies during buyer’s journey
You can implement different SEO and PPC strategies during the different stages of the buyer’s journey to gain maximum benefits. For example, after studying user preferences and purchase patterns, you can decide to do the following:
- Awareness Stage: post relevant blog posts and run Google display ads.
- Consideration Stage: Create and post comparison videos and articles and run remarketing with special offers.
- Action/Decision Stage: use high-intent keywords to optimize landing pages and run shopping ads and search ads with strong CTAs.
- After-Care/Post-Purchase Stage: post-follow-up/customer retention content such as How-to guides and tips and tricks. In addition, encourage customer reviews and testimonials. Also run remarketing ads and email campaigns.
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Choosing the best blend of PPC and SEO
Your ideal online marketing strategy should depend on your goals, budget, and the market. You can decide to run Google PPC ads if you need quick results. Or you can focus more on organic SEO if your budget is limited. It is indeed possible to harmonize both strategies to get the best outcomes for your business. Ultimately, you can use a comprehensive online strategy that is flexible, customer-oriented, and results-driven.
Are you ready to improve your business using both Google PPC and organic SEO campaigns? Visit Exclusive Blueprint, a digital marketing blog powered by Buzztide Technologies. Our blog provides valuable tips, trends, and tools that can help you stay ahead in the competitive landscape of digital marketing.
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