SEO and PPC are very different, but it's time to stop thinking about them as polar opposites. Because, although different, they aren't enemies. They are allies. And they work well together: They complement and benefit each other.
Kind of like Yin and Yang, they fit together to make a whole—in this case, well-rounded search marketing.
Here are six reasons that using pay-per-click and search engine optimization together will result in marketing that's more effective.
1. Greater Visibility
This first benefit should be obvious. You want your company and your brand to be as visible as possible online so that you can reach more people. If you are just running an SEO campaign, then your company is going to be on the SERPs only once for your organic ranking.
However, if you add PPC to the mix, then you get added exposure; you can be on the SERPs twice.
In addition, PPC ads generally make up the top two or three results on most SERPs. So, if you can dominate both the paid and organic spaces, you will not only have greater visibility but also convey the impression of having authority in your market.
2. Twice the Keyword Data
One of the great things about SEO and PPC is that both generate data for you to use to help your search marketing efforts. You can see which keywords you are ranking well for, which keywords give you the greatest conversions, etc. When you are running both SEO and PPC campaigns, then you have double the data to help you.
The more data you have, the more you can learn about your audience, the more changes you can make to improve campaigns, and the better your results will become.
3. Use Ad Copy
If you run PPC ads for your company, you quickly see which ones perform best and earn the most conversions. If people are clicking on your ads, then the ad copy is persuasive and gives people the information that they are seeking.
So, why not use that to your advantage? You can use your best performing ad copy to help your SEO campaign.
Incorporate the ad text into your title tags, meta descriptions, and even in your content for the pages that you are trying to rank for. Doing so benefits you greatly, because you already know that this copy works well.
You can test out title tags and meta descriptions organically, but that takes a long time. This way, you don't have to sit around and wait; you can go ahead and use copy that has been proven effective.
4. Retargeting
Retargeting, or remarketing (they are used interchangeably), is one of the most useful tools in search marketing.
Let's say you have been working hard on your organic rankings with SEO, and you finally have gotten in the top 4 of the SERPs. You want this hard work to pay off in conversions. However, visitors keep coming to your site but just don't convert. (Since only 2% of first-time visitors convert, this isn't too far off an assumption.)
With retargeting, you can target those users and serve your PPC ads to them—which is why retargeting is SEO's best weapon.
Once people become more familiar with your site, they are more likely to convert. So, you can serve ads to those who have visited you before, both bringing them back to your site and building your brand awareness.
5. Uncovering Keywords
Your website is going to rank organically for a lot of different keywords. Some of them you might have worked hard to rank for. Others, you might not have even thought of, and they just came naturally. Those natural rankings could be keywords that can get a lot of traffic and conversions. If so, you've just hit the PPC jackpot.
If you can find such organically ranking keywords, you can include them in your PPC campaign—and crush your competition.
Your goal in PPC is to figure out which keywords are performing the best; with SEO, you already have that information at your fingertips.
6. 'Exchanging' Keywords
Sometimes there are keywords that are just too expensive to use for PPC. That's when resorting to SEO can be extremely effective.
Maybe one of the top keywords that you want to target with PPC is just crazy-expensive, and you wouldn't want to use your entire budget on one keyword. The alternative is to go after that keyword with organic results—SEO. That way, you will rank for your targeted keyword, and you will still have your PPC budget for other keywords.
