While most online marketers agree that SEO and PPC are an essential in search engine marketing, many people are on only one side of the fence.  There are chest thumpers of the SEO lands, and a proud army of equal size in the lands of PPC.

But why are we putting SEO up against PPC, and warring, when really they should be working together?  We ask that you understand that PPC should complement SEO and vice versa, and the two should be nothing less than the best of friends.  And here’s why:

Keyword Tools Are Not Perfectly Accurate

We want to believe them and entrust in them, but unfortunately, they aren’t infallible.  How many times have you looked up keyword information through a tool, optimized your site, gotten the number one position for that keyword only to find that you are getting more traffic from the 4th or 5th most popular search term in the keyword database?  PPC allows you to get the raw data -assuming there is minimum skew from invalid clicks. If you run a broad match campaign over a set period of time, you can mine the REAL most popular keywords from your server logs.  Nice!

Not All Keywords Convert

Having ten thousand unique visitors a day come to your site using a search term is all well and good.  But if they don’t convert, you could just be exhausting your bandwidth. (Assuming you are not just running a branding exercise). But for many, web traffic is only a good thing when it converts – and that is the way it should be.

We all know SEO takes time. How does spending six months optimizing your site for a search term, getting the number one spot and finding out none of the traffic converts sound?  So here is where friend, not foe, PPC comes in. With a PPC campaign you can find out what keywords convert BEFORE pouring your time into an organic SEO campaign. Your PPC activities can inform your SEO strategy.  Now SEO, say thank you.

First Page Monopoly

We have all seen it.  We have all searched for a term and been directed to a results page with the top completely flooded with one company, or brand.  Yes, one brand is in the paid search results, and that same brand is monopolizing the prime real estate of the organic results.  What does this say to us/a searcher?  Well, my friend, only good things.

Meta Descriptions Are Quintessential

Meta descriptions are the little snippets shown from your site in the search results. These snippets are essential to getting users to click through to your site in organic listings.  Now which is better: a meta description with the text of your navigation links, or a meta description with a tested call to action and successful click through rate? With PPC, you can optimize your call to action and description to maximize your CTR on organic listings.  It may even be possible to get a higher click through rate in the second or third organic position if you have the perfect meta description. Searchers don’t rely on titles alone.  With PPC you can split test many different descriptions and see which performs best. Then add the best performing PPC creative to your meta description tags.

Relevance Is Bliss

All search engines share one goal.  They want to provide relevant results in the organic search results. Knowing and improving your quality score for certain keywords can reveal how relevant Google thinks your site is for any given keyword. Although this quality score is fairly subjective, it offers a good indication. In Google, keywords used in the query are bolded in the title, meta description and URL of the search results. With PPC you can find what keywords work and what keywords don’t and optimize your organic listings according to that data.

Landing Pages Can Be Optimized Quickly

When you reach that number one organic position, you can sit back and relax, right? Wrong. Getting the visitor to your site is just one phase in the online marketing mix. Once that visitor reaches your page, you need to convert that visitor. With PPC you can split test different landing pages and use multi variant testing to create the ultimate landing page experience. So when you reach that coveted number one position, be ready to convert that visitor. Landing page testing can help to inform changes you may want to make on your site.

In Closing

It is important that you see the synergy that can be created when SEO and PPC work together for a common goal.  Terrakon sees that the grass is equally green on both sides of the fence and we ask that you do too.