As a serious business owner, you do a lot of studying on the best ways to attract consumers to your business. And since you recognize that a lot of commercial activities have moved into the online space, you followed suit. What’s different here though is there are a lot of competitors, and you needed to find a way to stand out from the crowd. For this, you came across terms such as search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click (PPC) advertising.
Search engine optimization is the process of making a website more visible to users of search engines. The aim of this is to increase the quantity, and in turn, the quality of web visitors to your site. On the other hand, pay-per-click advertising is an advertising model employed by a variety of search engine and social media websites. Whenever a user searches for a product or service that you are advertising, your ad will appear at the top of results pages.
While both are excellent at driving traffic to websites, there are fundamental differences in what they are. SEO focuses on using techniques to drive traffic using free search results. In the PPC model, an advertiser pays to have their links, or ads, appear at the top of search results pages or news feeds of the end-user.
How does PPC traffic help with the overall SEO rankings of your website?
For a diligent business owner, you know that having an effective strategy is one way that can set you apart from the crowd. For this, using both SEO and PPC will help you achieve your goals. However, does PPC affect how well your site does in SEO rankings? Well, yes… and no.
PPC has no direct bearing on where your site will rank organically, even after a few months. However, as a result of PPC, several other things could happen that could then impact how well your site does SEO-wise. PPC does have an indirect effect on SEO. According to various studies conducted by Google, if a user sees an ad, they will be more likely to click on an organic search result. The combination of both the ad and the organic listing means the chances of one of them being clicked is higher.
According to the rule of seven, it takes a user seeing a brand seven times before they recognize it and begin to take action. A user may see your ad several times but not take action. At a different time, when they encounter organic results with your link at the top, they could decide to take action and click through to your site.
Find high converting keywords to build your SEO strategy
You not only have to think about promoting your brand in the present, but you also have to plan for the future. Here is where a lot of business owners and marketers prefer SEO. Search engine optimization takes a lot of time as it requires coming up with compelling content, and both on-page and off-page optimization.
In the present, you will need something to get your brand charging out of the starting gates. For this, you need PPC. AdWords will help you build campaigns and help you get your brand to the world stage in a few clicks. As you plan your campaign, you will need to do some research on the exact keywords that are relevant to your business. A good keyword is one that has high search ability and has little competition for use.
As any good marketer will tell you, using several keywords will help you narrow down the best keywords that drive traffic to your website by using A/B split tests. When you run your ads, AdWords offers you insights into which keywords perform best.
Here’s where PPC comes in to help with SEO. As you have already used several keywords, you have a useful dataset from which inferences can be made. Google AdWords can do this for you and can tell you which keywords are bringing in the most traffic and producing the most conversions.
This keyword blueprint helps you create content around high converting keywords you discovered in your tests with AdWords. Don’t waste 6 months to a year in optimizing your website for keywords that aren’t going to drive more conversions. Start with Adwords first.
Short term and long-term business plans
Running a business without a strategy is sort of like letting a headless chicken run loose. With no sense of direction or vision to know where it is headed, only disaster and heartbreak lie ahead. Coming up with a strategy takes some doing. Think of what you want to achieve and break it down into attainable milestones. This will help you plan your steps in building your brand.
PPC and SEO have to be a part of that strategy. However, they operate in different ways and therefore are best for different parts and types of strategy. Choosing the right method for the right strategy is a recipe for success. PPC is a method that is known for working fast, sometimes even bringing in paying customers within a few hours of being set up. This makes it an excellent method for brand awareness and the top parts of your sales funnel.
SEO, on the other hand, is known for taking time. The fruits of your SEO efforts may not be seen for months, sometimes even taking more than 12 months, even if you hit the bulls-eye with your keywords. However, once it kicks in, it can drive traffic to your website and help reduce your marketing and outreach costs significantly.
As you start out, rely on PPC to build your brand and bring in traffic. While that is happening, work on your SEO to build on your PPC efforts down the road.
Conclusion
A healthy business will want to do all the best it can to survive its fledgling period and start to turn a profit. For this to happen, a proper strategy has to be put in place.
Attracting customers will be the biggest challenge your business will face. For this, the two marketing methods will come in handy. A prudent business owner will know how to plan a strategy, and what tools to use to ensure the milestones in that strategy are met. Knowing how to wield a tool is not enough. Using the right tool for the right job is the most crucial.
SEO and PPC are excellent tools. They can be used separately, depending on your strategy and current business needs, but they are better when employed together to guarantee a steady stream of customers in the short and long term
