Today’s businesses have to figure out how to win at the online game. With the majority of shoppers penetrating the market through the digital space, there is a growing importance for start-ups and other businesses to implement a structured online strategy.

Whilst there are various methods you can adopt to reach customers online, two of the most powerful techniques are search engine optimisation (SEO) and pay-per-click advertising (PPC).

Here are some statistics to prove why:

• 93% of online experiences start with a search engine
• 57% of B2B marketers state SEO generates more leads than other marketing initiatives
• 88% of consumers perform some type of online research before making a large purchase
• 51% of website traffic comes from organic search results, 10% from paid
• 78% of location-based searches result in a purchase offline

SEO v PPC

Marketers are often divided between SEO and PPC. Whilst some believe paid advertising is the way to go, the majority of digital companies report organic search is their most lucrative channel.

We agree – to a point. There is no disputing that search engine marketing is a powerful technique. However, it has to be said that the process takes a long time to bring to fruition.

The drawback for start-ups and small businesses that have poor visibility in search engines is that your website is buried under a pile of higher ranking companies.

Realistically you’re looking at between 6-12 months to crank up your rank.

However, it should be noted that the majority of consumers today start the customer journey via a search engine. Needless to say, SEO is vitally important.

Paid ads in search engines such as Google Adwords and Bing Ads help businesses with poor online visibility reach customers that would not ordinarily find your website. 

Historically, search engine users showed a preference for organic results. These days, there has been an increase in the number of clicks for paid ads. According to 33% of people, paid ads tend to answer search queries better – which means publishers are nailing their content.

Furthermore, paid ads appear at the top of the screen. Ad placement is particularly crucial on mobile searches. Users have to scroll down to get to the organic results.

For start-ups to adopt an SEO strategy alone is risky – especially now the majority of searches are conducted on mobile and 88% of local searches are from a smartphone.

Immediate Results

The key difference between SEO and PPC is the former is a long-term strategy. Whilst it will deliver the best results in the long-run, you get very little to nothing for your initial investment.

Paid search, on the other hand, can drive immediate results. PPC ads appear at the top of search listings – above the fold. They are the first results end-users see on their screen.

Retailers that sell listed products can also add images which appear in a carousel – more commonly known as Google Shopping ads.

Not only that, but Google’s ‘Display Network’ provides unlimited platforms for your ads to appear on websites that publish content which is relevant to your ad. The key benefit of the Display Network is that paid ads are positioned in front of a relevant audience.

In case you not already aware, the Display Network is an extensive collection of third-party websites that have partnered with Google and accept ad placements on their websites.

The beauty is that these subset of web owners are not typically rival businesses. They are bloggers that are interested in niche markets and appeal to a niche audience. Ideally, you should also be reaching out to these people to act as influencers for your brand.

Not only does Adwords direct traffic to your website and improve your SERPS (search engine results pages), it enables you to identify the best keywords that drive traffic to your website.

Identify Valuable Keywords

With the right keywords, you can better optimise your entire website. Remember that search engines rank pages rather than entire websites.

Whereas you may want to rank your website for the most searched terms in your industry, the likelihood is the competition will be too intense for you to improve your visibility.

Optimising landing pages with niche keywords, however, is a fast-track technique to ranking in search engine listings. The analytics you can lift from PPC campaigns is valuable data that adds weight to your long-term SEO strategy.

What’s more, if you optimise your PPC campaigns for local searches, you build link juice to relevant web pages in local searches.

According to statistics, 72% of consumers that conduct a local search on a mobile device visit a store within five miles. You’ll be interested to note that 46% of all Google searches are local!

A top PPC manager will be able to spread relevant keywords across a range of sponsored ads and extract the keywords that turn in the best performance.

You will also need to know how to adjust targeting, analyse competitors, test keyword strategies and understand how adjustments to search engine algorithms might affect your page rank.

Gather Audience Data

SEO strategies are tied to search intent, location and consumer behaviour. Consumers that arrive at your website are either conducting product research, looking for relevant content, browsing or shopping.

Google Analytics provides several data points to help you identify these key metrics and develop a picture of your audience; demographics, interests, behaviour, geography, custom, mobile, users flow, page views, number of pages per session, session duration and bounce rate.

However, the PPC dashboard has a couple of additional tools you can use to modify your organic search strategy, adjust your PPC budget and influence strategies in other campaigns.

Access the “Audience Manager” and you will find a list of useful metrics including affinity audience, in-market, and custom intent. 

Understanding “Audience” metrics in Adwords provides insights into where search engine users are in the customer journey. This enables you to align content with relevant search terms in your paid ads.

One of the most useful data points is the “in-market audience” metric. This data reveals the percentage of search engine users that are actively researching and comparing products/brands.

If you add a positive bid modifier to the campaigns with the most relevant keywords, you can be more aggressive with your ad placements and increase your chances of capturing a higher share of the market.

Test Your Landing Pages

Despite the amount of data analysis available through Google Adwords and Analytics,the only real way to increaseconversions is by making sure you nail the content on your landing pages.

PPC landing pages are likely to be the first touchpoint you have with visitors. So make a good impression.

Your priority should be to address the user-experience. As you’re probably aware, how visitors interact with your website has a significant impact on how much kudos search engines rate your webpages.

Driving traffic through PPC campaigns can help you quantify the performance of your landing pages. Furthermore, you can apply these insights to the content across your entire website.

There are several UX tactics to treat as a priority. The main bugbears with visitors are:

Load Speed – According to Google, 53% of search engine users abandon websites if the page has not loaded within three seconds.

Mobile-Friendly – The majority of searches are performed on mobile devices. Check your data to determine how the majority of visitors access your website.

Provide relevant content – Consumers click on links for a reason. Make sure the information you provide in your content matches the search term the end-user typed into the search engine.

Declutter – Landing pages that have pop-up ads, native ads, autoplay videos and sidebars distract visitors from the main content and have a negative impact on the shopping experience.

Remarketing

PPC campaigns give you access to customers that have relevant search intent. Whilst prospects are in various stages of the journey, remarketing positions your ads in front of authentic customers that are ready to buy.

Remarketing essentially positions your ads in front of people that have already shown an interest in the product or services you provide – even if they haven’t visited your website.

Studies in consumer psychology reveal the average person needs to interact with a brand between 5-7 times before they recall your offer to memory. Repetition matters.

By incorporating Google’s Display Network into your paid advertising campaigns (we mentioned this earlier), your ads follow buyers around the internet.

This enables you to enhance exposure for your brand and drive relevant traffic to your website. If your landing pages provides a good shopping experience, you can expect to increase conversions.

The PPC-SEO Double Act

Whilst most businesses may only allocate their marketing budget to either SEO or PPC, the most effective approach for start-ups is to apply both. The more you feature in search engine results, the more clicks and conversions you achieve.

In the initial stages, paid ads increase your visibility and drive traffic – which ultimately improves your search engine metrics. Once you start ranking in organic results, you can move the bulk of your budget into SEO.

It’s worth noting, however, that new trends change data. The more analytics you collect as the landscape shifts, the better equipped you are to assess the market, consumer behaviours and the performance of your website.

With this in mind, rolling out PPC campaigns every once in a while gives you more touchpoints which can help to freshen up your data and the subsequent marketing strategies that are born from analytics.

Although the data in Adwords and Bing Ads is more measurable than the SEO metrics in Gogole Analytics, paid advertising is a very nuanced and complex procedure.

There are dozens of metrics to observe and understand, and it takes time to learn even the basics. If you crack the code, PCC is actually a cost-effective means of advertising. However, mistakes are costly and the longer it takes you to learn, the more money you are throwing into The Void.

Unless you can commit the time, and develop the patience, to learn how to make the most of pay-per-click advertising, the smart move is to outsource campaigns to experienced specialists.