by Zed Media

Search engine results are made up of both natural and paid-for listings. In order to get the best visibility and return on investment (ROI), brands should ideally run a coordinated approach for pay per click (PPC) and search engine optimisation (SEO).

If advertisers want to achieve the best results from their online investment, brands should not focus just on PPC or SEO. The ideal long term strategy is to have high visibility on both paid and natural sides of the search results. This is the most effective way for a brand to standout and achieve dominance within a search page. A combined strategy will also give the greatest chance of consumer clicks, meaning that both click volumes as well as overall conversion volume are higher.

It should be remembered that generic terms which are very competitive and costly in PPC are also likely to be very competitive terms in SEO.

Integration: why it is important?

Aligning PPC and SEO strategy, rather than managing channels in isolation, is ideal. Whether this is done internally by a brand or via one or several external agencies, integration achieves the best results. It allows brands to generate optimal coverage on important keywords, develop strategies for different stages in the research and & buying process, and to make cost savings through shared learnings.

How to integrate

Testing: New keywords can be tested in the PCC campaigns to assess their performance to show more immediate results than SEO can deliver. Keywords which generate good results can then be added to the list of terms promoted through SEO. Likewise, those terms which don’t perform can be left out of the list to promote through SEO so that resource can be directed to promoting terms that will have the most impact on overall performance. Creative messaging can also be tested through PPC, providing insights which can then be implemented in SEO.,

Generic terms: they have the highest search volumes and should be supported through PPC and SEO to ensure visibility. This will impact user consideration. As these terms also tend to have the highest cost per click (CPC), SEO can take the pressure off the PPC listings.,

Tactical activity: it’s important that for tactical campaigns SEO and PPC teams/agencies align approach. Short term promotions/communications can be reflected in PPC text while text in the natural listings will take longer to amend.

Landing page: it is essential that the page consumers land on is the same as advertised in the search listings, whether they’ve come through a PPC link or a natural one. With PPC now factoring in landing page content into the ranking and quality score advertisers should consider using pages developed for SEO purposes to deeplink through to (a deep link is a link that takes a user from a top level page, to a page further down in the site’s structure skipping a number of layers).,

Search submit pro: is a middle ground between PPC and SEO, run by Yahoo! Search Marketing and can help visibility in the natural side of the page.)

Definition of terms:

PPC advertisements are highly-relevant text ads displayed in response to a consumers’ search engine enquiry. These ads are displayed as sponsored listings within the search results and each includes a link to the company page. It is important to remember a cost is only incurred if a user clicks, interacts or completes an action with the ad.

Benefits:

• Immediate, and can be activated in a matter of days
• Text within the ad is quick and easy to change
• Advertisers pay on a cost-per click pricing model.

SEO is the process of improving a website in order to achieve the highest possible position in natural search results. This is done by defining key relevant phrases for a company and its offering, then optimising content on the site and building quality links to reflect this.

Benefits:

• SEO is a longer term strategy, it will take several months to seean impact
• Listing text is more difficult to amend
• SEO requires ongoing investment to maintain ranking.