How Do SEO and PPC Work Together? 6 Strategies to Turn Clicks to Customers

Mastering the art of blending search engine optimization (SEO) with pay-per-click (PPC) advertising creates a powerhouse duo that drives your business forward—combining precision targeting with an organic reach for unparalleled results.

Discover the synergy between SEO and PPC in this blog as we explore how this dynamic duo can fuel growth and elevate your digital marketing strategy.

What You’ll Learn

• What is SEO?
• What is PPC?
• Why Should I Use SEO and PPC Together? 
• 6 Strategies to Combine SEO and PPC 
• SEO vs. PPC: How Should You Allocate Resources?
• FAQs: SEO vs PPC

What Is SEO?

SEO pertains to the organic tactics used to increase visibility and ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs). Effective SEO makes a website more attractive to search engines like Google, increasing the likelihood of it being displayed prominently when users search for relevant keywords.

SEO has three main pillars: on-page, off-page, and technical SEO.

On-Page SEO

• Structural Optimization: It’s about structuring your website so that Google understands the relevance of every page.
• Keyword Research: Use the language that matches your audience’s search intent. Be sure to include long-tail keywords as customers move down the marketing funnel.

• URLs: URLs should be simple and descriptive.
• Page Titles and Meta Descriptions: Include keywords naturally in your page titles and craft your meta descriptions like ad copy.
• Content Optimization: Organically use your keywords, focus on EEAT, and include multimedia that enhances the user’s understanding. 

  

• User Experience (UX): Ensure your website is easy and enjoyable to navigate.
• Strong Calls to Action: Clearly indicate to users what action they should take next.

• Structured Data Markup: These code snippets help search engines understand your content better.

Off-Page SEO

• Link Building: Establish your brand’s authority and relevance by building quality links to other authoritative sites. 
• Content Quality: Creating valuable content encourages natural backlinks.
• Engagement: Engaging with your audience through social media and other platforms can indirectly impact your site’s authority.

Technical SEO

• Crawl and Indexing: Ensures that search engines can crawl your site and index your content to find and rank your content. 

• Mobile Experience: Your site must provide a solid experience across mobile devices.
• Speed: Web pages should load quickly on all platforms, including mobile and desktop.

  

• Technology: Your website should be built with search engine-friendly technology, including SSL certificates.
• Site Architecture: Use clear and consistent URL structures to help search engines with categorization.

Each of these pillars works together to create a comprehensive SEO strategy that improves site visibility, traffic, and engagement from organic search. 

Pros of SEO Strategies

• Increased Organic Visibility and Traffic: By optimizing for search engines, websites can achieve higher rankings in SERPs, leading to increased visibility and more organic traffic.
• Cost-Effectiveness: Compared to paid advertising, SEO is more cost-effective in the long run because it targets users who are actively searching for your products or services online.
• Builds Credibility and Trust: Websites landing on the first page of search results are perceived as more trustworthy and credible by users.
• Enhances User Experience: SEO involves optimizing the website’s structure, content, and performance, which improves the overall user experience.
• Long-term Marketing Strategy: While it might take time to see significant results, SEO efforts have long-lasting benefits for a business’s online presence.
• Highly Targeted: SEO allows businesses to target specific demographics and search queries, making the traffic more relevant.

Aspects of SEO To Keep In Mind

• Time-Consuming: It can take several months to see significant improvements in search rankings and traffic.
• Constantly Changing Algorithms: Search engines frequently update their algorithms, requiring businesses to adapt their SEO strategies regularly.
• Requires Expertise: Effective SEO requires knowledge of search engine algorithms, trends, and best practices, which might necessitate hiring an expert.
• High Competition: For popular keywords, the competition is intense, making it challenging for new or smaller websites to rank well without significant effort and investment.
• No Guaranteed Results: Despite best efforts, there is no guarantee of achieving top rankings, especially for highly competitive keywords.

What Is PPC?

PPC is a model of Internet marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. It’s essentially buying visits to your site, rather than attempting to ‘earn’ those visits organically through SEO.

PPC ads can appear on search engines, social media platforms, and various websites. One of the most popular forms of PPC marketing is search engine advertising, where ads appear on SERPs above or alongside organic search results for specific keywords. 

This model allows advertisers to target potential customers actively searching for products or services similar to theirs, making it a highly effective marketing strategy.

The key elements of a PPC campaign include:

• Keyword Research: Picking the right search terms that potential customers use.
• Ad Copywriting: Crafting compelling ads that entice clicks.
• Landing Page Creation: Designing relevant and conversion-optimized landing pages for ad clicks.
• Bid Management: Strategically setting and adjusting keyword bids for maximum ROI.

  

• Analytics and Optimization: Using data to continually refine and improve campaign performance.
• Quality Score Management: Ensuring ads and landing pages are relevant to maintain low costs and high positions.
• Conversion Tracking: Understanding post-click actions to gauge campaign effectiveness.
• Competitive Analysis: Analyzing competitors to inform differentiation strategies.
• Platform Compliance: Following PPC platform rules to ensure ad approval and activity.

Pros of PPC

• Speed to Market: Ads can be launched quickly, putting your offering in front of potential customers quickly.
• Highly Targeted: PPC allows for detailed targeting, including keywords, demographics, geography, and even time of day.
• Measurable & Trackable: With proper analytics, PPC campaigns offer clear metrics for ROI, click-through rates, and conversion details.
• Flexibility: Campaigns can be swiftly adjusted based on performance data or changes in marketing strategy.
• Budget Control: You have full control over your spending with options to set limits on daily, weekly, or monthly advertising expenditures.
• Testing Capabilities: Use A/B testing to allow continuous improvement of ad copy and landing pages.

• Visibility: Ensures top placement on search engine results pages, offering immediate visibility and brand exposure.

Aspects of PPC To Keep In Mind

• Cost: Competitive keywords can be expensive, and costs can accumulate if not managed closely.
• Clicks ≠ Sales: Not every click results in a conversion, and poorly targeted campaigns can result in low ROI.
• Skill Required: Effective management of PPC requires expertise to ensure cost-efficiency and performance.
• Time Investment: Developing, monitoring, and optimizing campaigns takes time—an often overlooked cost.
• Complexity: Platforms can be complex, with numerous settings and features that can complicate campaign management.
• Competition: High competition for popular keywords can increase costs and make it harder to win a spot.
• Temporary: Unlike organic SEO efforts, the benefits of PPC stop as soon as you pause the campaign.

Why Should I Use SEO and PPC Together?

Integrating SEO with PPC is a strategic approach for maximizing online visibility. Using them in tandem ensures your brand makes a mark on search results twice over. You’ll capture immediate attention with instant exposure provided by PPC campaigns while growing organically by targeting keywords with search engine optimization strategies. 

Use cross-channel insights to fine-tune your campaigns with precision, enhance targeting, and ensure every dollar spent is an investment toward reaching the most receptive audience.

When your SEO and PPC work together, it does more than just increase traffic – it amplifies trust and credibility among consumers. When your brand consistently appears in both paid and organic search spots, it signals authority and reliability, reinforcing your reputation. 

How to Use SEO and PPC Together: 6 Strategies

1. Develop a Unified Keyword Strategy

Start with exhaustive keyword research, ideally using tools like Google Keyword Planner. Target keywords that are relevant to both SEO and PPC campaigns.

Next, use PPC campaigns to test the performance of these keywords. PPC can provide quick, actionable data on which keywords convert well.

Then, apply successful PPC keywords to your SEO content strategy to enhance organic search performance over time.

Watch the video below as SEO Expert, John Lincoln, explains the key reasons why you should leverage paid media in your SEO strategy:

2. Run Integrated Campaigns

Launch SEO and PPC campaigns around the same themes or promotions to create a cohesive user experience. Then, use insights from PPC ad copy to inform your SEO meta descriptions and title tags.

Pro-Tip: Pay attention to the titles and descriptions that get the most clicks.

3. Share Data to Inform Insights

Regularly review the analytics from both PPC and SEO. Look for trends and insights that can inform both strategies. For example, if certain PPC ads have high click-through rates (CTR), meaning your message resonates with your audience. Consider using similar messaging in your organic content.

Utilize PPC data to understand user intent better and refine your SEO content to match this intent. This will enhance your site’s relevance to your target audience.

4. Run Remarketing Using SEO and PPC

Use data from your SEO efforts to identify high-value pages that receive a lot of organic traffic but might have lower conversion rates.

Then, create PPC remarketing campaigns targeting visitors of these pages to re-engage them with a more personalized ad experience, effectively bringing previous visitors back to your site to complete a conversion.

5. Use Cross-Channel Budget Allocation

Divide your marketing budget based on the performance insights you gather from both channels.

For instance, if SEO efforts for certain keywords face stiff competition and yield low ROIs, it might be a better idea to shift your focus and resources (time and money) to PPC for those specific terms.

You’ll want to consider the overall customer acquisition costs (CAC) of both channels before you adjust your budgets. A digital marketing agency specializing in SEO and PPC can help you refine your strategies so you spend your budget on the channel with the best ROI.

6. Leverage PPC for SEO Content Gaps

Identify content gaps in your SEO strategy by using PPC data.

First, dive into top queries. If certain queries bring PPC traffic but you don’t have organic content that addresses these queries, create new SEO content to fill these gaps.

This method will help you generate content your target audience is searching for, helping you grow your brand visibility online. 

SEO vs. PPC: How Should You Allocate Resources?

Effective SEO and PPC management means balancing short-term goals with long-term growth, guided by performance data and market conditions. This process can be difficult, so we’ve provided a streamlined approach for effective resource allocation:

Step 1: Define Goals – Use PPC for immediate results like promotions or product launches. Lean on SEO to build long-term brand authority and organic traffic.

Step 2: Analyze Data – Allocate more resources to the channel (SEO or PPC) delivering better ROI and engagement. Shift budgets based on which strategy is achieving your specific objectives more effectively.

Step 3: Evaluate the Competitive Landscape – In highly competitive niches, PPC might offer quicker visibility, whereas SEO might be more cost-effective in less saturated markets or for long-tail keywords.

Step 4: Budget Flexibility – Start with pilot campaigns for both PPC and SEO to gather initial performance data. Adjust your budget allocation based on these insights, focusing on scaling successful efforts.

Step 5: Integrated Approach – View SEO and PPC as complementary strategies. SEO efforts can improve PPC quality scores, while PPC provides valuable keyword and conversion insights for SEO optimization.

FAQs About SEO and PPC Strategies

1. How do SEO and PPC work together?

SEO and PPC marketing complement each other by enhancing a brand’s search engine presence. While SEO builds long-term organic traffic using optimized content and keywords, PPC offers immediate visibility through targeted ads. This combination ensures a brand appears in both organic and paid search results, increasing overall traffic and leveraging cross-data insights to improve strategy. Together, they create a more robust online marketing approach, optimizing both immediate and sustained visibility.

2. What’s the difference between SEO and PPC?

The main difference between SEO and PPC lies in their approach and timing for visibility in search results. SEO is about optimizing a website to rank higher in organic search results through content, keywords, and backlinks, aiming for long-term traffic growth. PPC, by contrast, involves bidding on keywords to get ads displayed above or beside organic search results, offering immediate visibility at a cost for each click. SEO is a gradual process focused on credibility and organic reach, while PPC offers quick, paid positioning in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Ignite Marketing With Unique SEO and PPC Strategy

By leveraging the strengths of an SEO and PPC agency, you can achieve enhanced visibility, increased traffic, and better conversions, ultimately ensuring a robust presence in the SERPs. 

All kinds of businesses use Ignite to make the most of their SEO and PPC marketing strategies. Whether you’re a brick-and-mortar store or you run an enterprise company, we’re here to support your business. 

Ignite can help you: 

• Integrate your SEO and PPC marketing strategies
• Increase organic traffic
• Improve the quality of your leads
• And so much more!

Ready to get started? 

Contact Ignite Visibility today for more information on SEO and PPC services.