How SEO and PPC Work Can Together as SEM

SEO (search engine optimization) and PPC are two sides of the same coin of SEM (search engine marketing). It’s a coin that all webmasters would benefit from collecting. SEM includes SEO  and PPC to some degree, but while each is an independent method of bringing in new website readers, both also require a well-designed and reader-friendly website to be truly effective.

SEO

This is the process of enhancing the visibility of your website on search engine results pages (SERPs). Major search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing each have an algorithm which is a complex mathematical formula that they use to determine the credibility of a site and how it should be ranked on their results pages. The higher your site appears on the a search engine’s results pages, the higher the likelihood that users will click and visit your page. According to research, the top five slots on the SERPs receive 88 percent of the traffic. Rarely will traffic go beyond the third page of search engine results.

SEO helps you gain better visibility and ranking which in turn enables you to find new customers that will drive up your revenue numbers. Additionally, search engine optimization will open up new markets through the use of mobile and social media platforms. As a small business owner, having a search engine optimized website that is easy to use, fast and compatible with mobile devices will enhance your conversions.

Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)

What is PPC, you say? PPC is a monitored type of online marketing strategy also known as Paid Search Advertising where the advertiser displays ads on a publisher site. When a visitor clicks on the ad and is directed to the advertiser’s website, the advertiser pays the publisher.

PPC is facilitated by major search engines where paid listings will appear on the search engine results pages together with the organic or unpaid listings. The common paid listing model used is based on keyword bidding. Here, the advertiser chooses specific keyword phrases that should be used to trigger their ads and the maximum price for which they are willing to pay when the ad is clicked on by a visitor.

Google AdWords is the largest PPC advertising model available online that displays up to 11 ads per page. The cost per click will be determined by the number of advertisers competing for the same keyword, the position of the ad on the SERP and the quality of the website where visitors are directed upon clicking.

As long as you have a quality landing page or a website, PPC can help you target a certain audience based on the selected keyword. You can also use PPC to gather data and analytics on the number of people who clicked on your ads and the revenue you made out of it. This enables you to calculate your return on investment.

SEM

This is a hybrid form of internet marketing that brings together search engine optimization, pay per click and paid inclusion to boost the ranking of your website on search engines. The SEO component of SEM will organically boost your visibility on search engines while the paid listing will further enhance your ranking for specific keywords that have a high conversion rate.

As a small business marketer, you can use SEM to boost your brand visibility. According to research, 75 percent of the site visits are due to SEO efforts. SEM brings in Pay Per Click (PPC) and paid inclusion components that use sponsored listings to close in on the remaining 25 percent. What this means is that you will lock out your competitors from the top rankings for certain keywords. They will not be able to penetrate your turf because of the triple action of SEO, paid inclusion and PPC on your marketing campaign.

SEO and PPC Working Together

When SEO and PPC are part of a coordinated SEM website marketing Strategy, the two disciplines complement one another. SEO provides targeted keywords and ready-made market research information for the overall marketing strategy, which assists in the creation of more effective and targeted advertisements.

SEO is also a focus on relevance throughout the internet. Whether through backlinks or inbound content, SEO is focussed on ensuring that your on-site content provides the most relevant answers to the targeted questions given to search engines. This relevance is the target of any inbound marketing strategy since it allows the search engines to grade your ‘answers’ as the best to the queries it receives.

When your pages are more relevant, you inherently receive a better page score. This score lowers the PPC cost per click, and as a result, makes your PPC campaigns more efficient. It is always suggested to enhance both SEO and PPC campaigns with targeting keyword selections that overlap, though are not necessarily duplicates.  Overlapping the keywords allows the keyword groups to be expanded, while still enhancing the targets of both SEO and PPC.

Together the two combine with other digital marketing elements to create a more robust SEM campaign.

SEO and PPC Effectiveness

When SEO and PPC work together, they can be more effective than either method would be alone, but both are only as good as the site they’re promoting. The best marketing and the most carefully targeted keywords will be useless if the website itself does not provide the quality necessary to support the marketing efforts of SEO and PPC.

When these two digital marketing fundamentals are working in unison, they act as a resource multiplier for your SEM strategy.