Strategic digital marketing is the best way to reach your audience. Two of the most important digital marketing tools for getting your business in front of the right people are PPC and SEO. But what is the difference between PPC and SEO, and how do the two work together to achieve superior digital marketing results?
What are SEO and PPC in digital marketing?
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, and that’s exactly what a good SEO strategy does – optimises your website to perform better in search engines. SEO is a strategic process to improve your website’s ranking for targeted keywords and phrases that your audience is searching for. By continually optimising the content on your website, you will rank higher in search results.
What is PPC?
PPC stands for pay-per-click. It is a search engine feature that generates the ads you see when scrolling through popular search engines, such as Google. PPC ads can also be displayed on social media, such as LinkedIn and Facebook, and in Google Shopping. PPC ads are a good way to affordably attract new customers, as you only pay for ads when they are clicked (hence the term pay-per-click).
How do PPC and SEO work together?
1. Better ranking in search results
By ensuring both your SEO content and PPC ads are targeting relevant, audience-specific keywords, your business can dominate search results. You will occupy more search engine results pages (SERPs), ensuring your brand is the one people see first when they search for terms relating to what your business offers.
Combining the power of PPC and SEO also allows you to target paid ad spots and organic spots as well, such as the featured snippets results that appear near the top of SERPs to answer specific queries related to what the user has searched for.
2. More efficient and cost effective
Though PPC is rightfully valued for its ability to cost effectively bring in new customers at little financial risk, it becomes much more effective when the website you are directing your ads to has been optimised.
In a nutshell: if the SEO for your website is strong, you won’t need to spend as much on your PPC to see effective results.
If you want your digital marketing budget to work hard for you, investing it in both SEO and PPC is the best way forward. SEO and PPC are powerful marketing tools when harmonised, and the effort put into one will bolster the other.
3. Helpful user data
Having both PPC and SEO in place gives you a deeper understanding of the users visiting your website and interested in your services. This data can in turn be used to create a more finely tuned digital marketing strategy.
For example, PPC ad clicks give you a real-time glimpse of which keywords and content your audience are engaging most with. This insight can then be used to direct your SEO strategy, considering factors such as the user journey visitors take through your website, and the action you need them to take to convert (e.g. filling out a contact form).
4. Remarketing
A targeted, researched SEO strategy implemented across your website will help you rank well for keywords and phrases. This should draw in a good amount of traffic. But what happens when these visitors aren’t ready to make up their minds immediately about whether to use your services or not? The answer: PPC to the rescue.
A form of PPC called remarketing can be used to show ads to visitors to your website at a later date, if they need some more time to consider their purchase. This way, when they are ready to buy later down the line, your ads will be there reminding them to come back to your website.
