When considering what digital marketing strategy is right for your business, it can often come down to SEO vs PPC. They are usually framed as competitors, forcing firms to choose one. The reality, however, is far different. A sophisticated, versatile digital marketing strategy understands that SEO and PPC are not adversaries and can be used to amplify each other.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) increases the frequency of traffic to your website through organic search results. This is usually done by focusing on relevant keywords and optimising pages or building your website structure around ranking highly in Google and other search engines for these keywords. It’s part of a long-term SEO strategy as it often involves creating many content pages.

Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing, on the other hand, is internet marketing in which advertisers pay a fee every time one of their ads is clicked. This includes ads on search engine results pages (like Google Ads or Microsoft Ads), display ads on other websites, and social media advertising.

A successful digital marketing strategy recognises that it isn’t about picking one or the other. A powerful online presence can be achieved by integrating them into a cohesive whole.

We (Salience) operate a profitability-first paid media model. Read all about it here. 

 

What are the differences between SEO and PPC?

Firstly, it’s crucial to understand the fundamental difference between SEO and PPC. Each discipline operates with different principles and timelines.

  • Cost: While SEO traffic is free, it requires a significant investment in resources (time, expertise, and content) to work effectively. PPC involves direct ad spend for every impression or click.
  • Speed of Results: SEO is a long-term strategy that can often take months to see growth in a website’s visibility. A PPC campaign is usually more targeted and quicker to operate, frequently creating viable leads in a matter of hours.
  • SERP position: PPC ads appear at the top and bottom of SERPs, clearly marked as “Sponsored” to indicate that they are advertisements. SEO targets organic search results, which are the options in between.
  • Longevity: SEO is a long-term strategy because a strong organic search ranking from SEO can be durable and built on with more pages and a concise, well-implemented site structure. In contrast, when you stop paying for PPC, your ad traffic immediately disappears.
  • Targeting: PPC offers granular targeting options, including demographic data, user behaviour, and location. SEO is primarily driven by users’ search terms.
  • Skillset: Effective SEO requires Technical SEO, link building, and content strategy expertise to create a site structure and understand what terms each page should target. PPC management involves understanding bidding strategy, audience targeting, and creative ad development.

 

What are the different features in the SERP landscape?

Today’s search engine results page (SERP) is more complex than it was a few years ago, offering much more information than ten blue links. The information displayed has become more fluid as it adapts more to the user’s needs. It tries to anticipate the most relevant information, products, and questions a user could have and attempts to provide these answers without them having to click another link.

 

Search engine algorithms now deliver a dynamic roster of features, and SEO and PPC can play crucial roles in helping your website become part of this new layout. Key features include featured snippets (answer boxes near the top of the page), knowledge panels about specific relevant topics and universal results like images, video results and news articles. The local pack showing Google Maps results and Google My Business profiles is paramount for local businesses. There are even local service ads that appear above traditional results.

 

A comprehensive digital marketing strategy adapts to how search engines display this information, using SEO to capture organic snippets and rank, while PPC secures an ad near the top of the page. This ensures that your presence is felt in several areas of the page.

 

SEO vs PPC – An investment in time vs paid ads

Businesses often think of PPC vs SEO because they are so fundamentally different. PPC is a direct transaction—you pay for immediate visibility, which is very valuable when testing a new product or promoting a time-sensitive offer.

 

SEO is an investment in your digital assets and means you’re potentially competing with content-rich websites. It involves building a robust, clear website structure, creating valuable content, thinking of the user experience when optimising your landing pages and creating an effective link-building strategy so your domain authority can grow. You aren’t just renting space on the SERP; you are creating an SEO strategy designed to have sustained website traffic.

 

What are the metrics and KPIs for SEO and PPC?

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are vital for measuring success. While both PPC and SEO ultimately drive business goals, their immediate metrics differ.

 

SEO metrics and KPIs

  • Organic traffic and sessions
  • Organic click-through rate (CTR)
  • Impression share in Google Search
  • Backlink profile and domain authority
  • Keyword rankings and visibility
  • Organic conversion rate
  • Crawl errors and indexation status

 

PPC metrics and KPIs

  • Quality scores
  • Click-through rate (CTR)
  • Conversion data and conversion rate
  • Cost per click (CPC) and Cost per acquisition (CPA)
  • POAS (Profit on Ad Spend)
  • Ad spend and budget pacing
  • Impression share and top of page rate

 

How do I integrate SEO and PPC?

PPC and SEO can work together to achieve far more for your website than they could alone.

 

Improve your visibility in SERPs

Applying effective SEO and PPC can lead to more coverage on SERPs. When you rank number one organically and hold the top ad position for a popular search term, your website dominates the user’s screen, making it more likely that they will click on it. This creates brand credibility, showing that you’re one of the central voices in this industry or subject matter. Just as important, it pushes other competitors further down the page.

 

Data sharing to highlight keyword gaps and opportunities

PPC data can be used to improve your SEO campaign. Search query reports from Google Ads tell you the exact search terms that users are using to see your ads and how many of these are converting. From this, you can use these proven keywords (particularly valuable long-tail keywords) to bolster your SEO strategy by targeting them for long-term organic ranking, which will reduce future ad spend as that high-ranking organic page will be doing the work that the ad was previously doing. This also ensures that you avoid content cannibalisation because your SEO and PPC efforts will target complementary terms.

 

Improve landing page quality

It turns out the landing page experience is crucial to your PPC campaign. A high Google Ad quality score is essential to running an effective PPC campaign because it directly impacts your ad rank and how much you pay per click. This score is partly affected by the quality of your landing pages, meaning that by applying SEO best practices to create relevant, user-friendly landing pages, you can improve both your organic and PPC performance. As such, better-quality landing pages will lead to lower costs and better ad positions.

 

Cross-channel promotion

Your best-performing SEO assets can become fuel for your PPC campaigns. For instance, if you have a well-written, comprehensive guide that addresses key customer pain points and attracts significant organic traffic, you can create a remarketing audience based on people who have already been on your website. You could target this highly-engaged audience with specific display marketing or social media ads, guiding them further down the funnel. This shows how SEO and PPC can create a stronger digital marketing strategy.

 

Assisted conversions

Conversion paths often involve multiple touchstones across different channels. A user could discover your brand due to a Google organic search (SEO), leave to learn more about the product, and then be reminded of the potential purchase through a remarketing ad (PPC) before converting. In this instance, Google Analytics would state that this is an assisted conversion because the page that appeared in organic search technically led the user partway down the funnel. Understanding this interplay is key for proper conversion attribution and appreciating the combined value both channels bring to the table.

 

We are specialists in Organic SEO and PPC. Contact us to learn more.

A siloed strategy is no longer sufficient. We have years of experience creating integrated campaigns that leverage the strengths of SEO with our PPC services to increase your website’s visibility and traffic and deliver a higher return on investment. Contact us today to learn more about how we combine SEO with PPC for a better-quality and more focused campaign.