The Symbiotic Relationship Between SEO and PPC
By Rob Murray
August 10, 2005
Somebody please help me. For the life of me I can’t understand why so many search marketers are missing the boat on what seems to be a no-brainer. For some reason, a lot of companies are managing their pay per click advertising and search engine optimization campaigns separately, using different vendors or agencies, with different goals, with little or no communication between the two, and absolutely no integration.
But why? Given the power that can be generated by the effective integration of paid and natural search, I just don’t get it.
In today’s SEM services marketplace, the vast majority of agencies/vendors offer both natural search engine optimization, as well as pay per click advertising management (and those that don’t do both typically offer just paid search management). Yet often, search marketers engage with a firm that offers both services, but only utilize the firm for one, paid or natural. Further still, some companies even contract with one company for SEO, another for PPC advertising, and still another for Yahoo! paid inclusion. Talk about a three-headed monster!
Now, I don’t totally have my head buried in the sand here. I realize that these marketers often think they are opting for “best of breed” solutions by entrusting their campaigns to firms who have made their reputations in one particular area. So initially this strategy may appear wise due to the ostensible specialization of a firm focusing on just one thing. But the problem with this approach is that it fails to effectively capitalize on the inherent synergies of the campaigns, thus failing to fully realize the upside of integration.
So what is at stake here? What are marketers really missing out on by failing to integrate the two as effectively as they can? In a word: RESULTS
Integrating paid and natural campaigns leverages the knowledge gained from one campaign to enhance the success of the other campaign. Integrated correctly, the two channels form a truly symbiotic relationship – where each feeds the other, as well as feeds off the other – to produce results that are greater than the sum of the two parts.
For example, integrating the two campaigns will aid keyword selection and refinement, for both regular and negative keywords. Examining natural search referrals gives you data on keywords you should negative match (traffic you don’t want). PPC allows you to quickly test keywords and determine their conversion rates so you can use that data to inform the keywords for which you optimize your site using natural SEO. Sharing keyword performance data across both efforts makes them both more likely to produce conversions.
Also, integrating the two campaigns allows for a deeper understanding of which keywords convert best on which landing pages, which can instruct your natural strategy for optimizing specific keywords for particular pages, and integrating the two also creates the opportunity to quickly test ad copy on what best entices users to click, and then apply that knowledge to the organic site optimization strategy.
Lastly, coordinating PPC bidding strategy with natural search results provides an opportunity to catch users below the fold if they don’t click on a top ranked listing above the fold. If you already have a #1 natural ranking on a keyword and don’t want to pay for double exposure by displaying a top ranked PPC ad, you can intentionally place your PPC ad in position 6, for instance, to make your ad appear below the fold and have a second chance at picking up a user who didn’t click on the natural listing.
Bottom line: Marketers can no longer afford to ignore the symbiotic relationship of PPC and SEO, and the positive returns netted from the effective integration of these two campaigns. In the end, it’s about producing results. If you are going to engage in both PPC and SEO, do it effectively, in an integrated, streamlined approach with one vendor.
