Paid Search vs. SEO — Can PPC Hurt Your Campaign?

The best website traffic comes from organic searches, which results from good SEO. Search engine optimization helps websites to rank on the first page of search results for queries potential customers enter. Unfortunately, this does not happen overnight. It takes months and sometimes even years to make it to the top of the first page, especially for competitive keywords, such as PPC and SEO.

Because of this, many business owners rely on ads to boost their website traffic. While this delivers immediate results, it begs the questions of whether pay-per-click ads can hurt your campaign. In most instances, such a strategy actually improves it. It is sometimes best to avoid paid search vs. SEO comparisons, because ideally, every business has a marketing plan that includes both. However, the ratio of one versus the other may significantly affect the success of a marketing campaign.

 

What Is PPC and SEO?

Forbes defines search engine optimization as a system of strategies marketers use to organically increase traffic to a website. Success depends on where the company ranks in search results for particular queries. The techniques involved largely focus on back-end work on websites and content creation to create these positive changes in website traffic. Business owners pay for the initial work but may continue to reap benefits for years to come once they are in place.

Paid search, also known as search engine marketing, operates differently. This strategy relies on ads that companies pay to place in the sponsored section of search engine results. SEM also includes social media, which may allow a company’s posts to appear in the timeline of its targeted audience. Unlike SEO, once the company stops paying for these ad spaces, the momentum dries up.

Still, the differences are not always this clear cut in the paid search vs. SEO debate. Sometimes paid search gets a company in front of enough of the right customers to spark a movement. This may bring visitors to the business who then become regular customers. However, as far as direct website traffic goes, the well runs dry until the company funds another campaign.

Forbes acknowledges that because of these differences, many people pitch the two marketing strategies against each other. Rather than continue along this line, though, these experts recommend that business owners and managers should consider how the two work together and play off each other.

 

Why Use PPC and SEO Together?

Some business owners may require more convincing when it comes to combining PPC with SEO. They may read so much into the paid search vs. SEO comparisons that they feel compelled to choose between one or the other. When dishonest marketers specialize in only one of the two marketing techniques, they may further discourage business owners from pursuing both.

There are many reasons business owners should use a PPC and SEO mix instead of a paid search vs. SEO approach. Note that technically speaking, PPC does not have a direct impact on SEO. Even so, there are indirect effects that you can take advantage of.

1. Increased Brand Awareness

Most brands have neither the time nor money to focus campaigns exclusively on raising awareness. Only bigger companies usually tackle projects like this, building off the momentum of already existing as a household name. Even so, paid search does help to raise awareness. Over time, this may encourage people to click on organic links or give the business a try, because it feels more familiar.

2. Fine-Tuning Local Leads

For online companies, local leads may not be all that important. However, for brick-and-mortar businesses, location affects the quality of their leads or conversion. When locals do searches via their phones, they will see the PPC ads first. Listings from Google My Business follows next. This is a twofold plan, as when people scroll down to the listing, they may come across your business again. This reinforces it as a viable option.

3. Better Overall Targeting

Marketers often add geo tags to keywords to help make the content more location-specific. This helps to ensure people in a particular locale see the content in search engine results. However, it does not prevent Google from showing the content to everyone else. When doing a paid search vs. SEO comparison, this is one of the benefits PPC does have over SEO. For instance, Entrepreneur.com describes PPC ads as “highly targeted.” On search engines and social media, you can choose demographic factors in addition to location, such as gender, age, interests and even travel habits.

4. Increased Visibility

Step back from viewing marketing from a business standpoint for a moment. Return to your everyday life as a consumer. Now, ask yourself. How many times have you clicked on a link or checked out a website or restaurant because it kept popping up in your feed or search engine results? Virtually everyone with an internet connection falls prey to this at some point. By using two highly effective methods to get your message in front of customers, you create a similar effect.

5. Better PR Control

Marketing gets businesses seen. Public relations affects how people perceive the company. When a small business starts out, the owners typically focus more on marketing than PR. Even so, during a crisis, companies rely on PR to maintain a good brand image and remain in business. Using PPC and SEO together is one of the most effective ways to control what people see about the company in the media.

6. Testing SEO Strategies

Are you new to SEO? Even if your marketer is a veteran of the industry, is your business new? If either of these are true, you may need to test SEO strategies before fully implementing them. PPC ads may help with testing and confirming good keywords. You may also use PPC ads to test ad copy, landing pages and specific deals. On social media platforms that preview a featured picture, such as Facebook, you may also use it to test imagery.

 

Combining PPC and SEO

As with any marketing mix, how you combine two or more elements has a strong impact on the outcome. Note that failure to consider the following factors may create more problems than solutions. Such inefficiencies can raise more questions in the paid search vs. SEO debate.

1. Consider the Budget

How much money can you spend on marketing? The larger a company’s budget, the more it can afford to spend on paid search. For smaller budgets, some money should go toward PPC. However, to take advantage of a more long-term focus on ROI, invest as much as possible in organic results.

2. Plan for Business Age

How long have you been in business? If your company has been around for a long time, chances are word-of-mouth has already spread regarding what the business does. PPC can help to reach more people and marketers should use it for this. However, already enjoying some degree of popularity allows the company to invest more in a long-term SEO strategy.

3. Optimize the Keywords

Keywords remain at the heart of virtually all SEO and SEM techniques. However, for them to work, you need to focus on optimizing. That means analyzing the data and paying attention to what works and what doesn’t. Too many business owners have access to this information and know the benefits, but never act on it.

 

Contact Boostability

Many successful managers, CEO and owner-operators prefer not to handle these tasks themselves. Instead, they hire marketers to optimize their SEO strategy and fine-tune their PPC ads. Boostability is a leading white label SEO provider globally and has been helping small businesses with their SEO strategies for over a decade. Contact us today for more information or to get started!

If you’re not ready to take that step, get a free website submission on us to see what you can start doing now to improve your SEO performance!