How to incorporate SEO in PPC campaigns to drive greater results

SEO and PPC go hand in hand because they are both forms of search marketing. However, often SEO and PPC campaigns work in silo due to different objectives such as driving traffic vs. increasing sales. Brands need to rethink the idea of campaign objectives, and instead, consider how SEO and PPC can work together to improve overall performance. Some benefits of a combined search marketing strategy include increasing brand visibility, maximising ROI and boosting conversions. Here are 5 ways your brand can begin incorporating SEO into PPC campaigns to improve their quality, relevance, and overall performance. 

1. Include SEO keywords in PPC campaigns 

Often SEO and PPC teams complete their own keyword research, however sharing data and insights can help to improve the performance of both SEO content and PPC ad copy. SEO tools such as Google Search Console are a great way of understanding how users search. This can help to inform what keywords would resonate well with the audience. Once the top performing SEO keywords are highlighted they can be incorporated into your PPC ad copy. Including relevant keywords in the ad copy can improve the quality score of the ads, lead to better ad rankings and reduce the cost-per-click (CPC). 

2. Optimise PPC landing pages to include SEO keywords

A good user journey is important. There is nothing more jarring for a user than a high quality ad driving users to a low quality page, yet brands often put all their effort and marketing budgets into creating effective ads, without considering the landing page. This is one of the reasons that PPC clicks have such a high bounce rate. Therefore, PPC landing pages can perform better if the content itself is reflective of the PPC ad copy. This is where SEO can help. One of the roles of SEO is to create engaging and effective onsite content that can keep users on the page for longer. Including SEO keywords into the PPC landing page provides valuable and relevant content to the visitors, which can lead to a higher conversion rate.

3. Improve the crawlability of landing pages to increase Google’s Quality Score

The Quality Score of your PPC ads is important. The greater your score, the higher your ads can rank. Google takes a number of things into consideration when rating your site, including the quality and relevance of your keywords. However, to obtain this information Google needs to be able to easily crawl your site in order to understand its contents. Simple SEO fixes like improving page speed, adding keywords and simplifying your site structure can make your landing pages easier for Google to crawl. Therefore, getting the fundamentals of SEO right on your site can lead to a greater Quality Score, which can have a direct impact on your PPC campaigns.

4. Optimise landing pages for mobile devices

On average, 62% of Google Ads Clicks come from mobile devices, as well as 63% of organic traffic, making optimising towards mobile incredibly important for both SEO and PPC. There are various things you can do to optimise your landing pages towards mobile, ready to capture this significant amount of users. From uploading cropped, high quality images, to ensuring any buttons are clear and easy to see, you need to design your web pages with a small mobile screen in mind. This ensures that users have a good experience on mobile once they have clicked a PPC ad. Optimising your website towards mobile also ensures that overall visibility in the search engine results pages (SERPs) is improved, which can help to boost brand awareness.

5. Use SEO keyword variations to test different messaging and calls to action

Conducting A/B tests are a great way of testing what keyword variations perform better. Firstly, you will need to complete keyword research to identify what SEO keywords to target. Once identified, you can begin to add these keywords into different versions of PPC ad copy to test what performs well. You can then optimise your campaign based on these tests to drive greater results. Artificial intelligence will play a big role in this optimisation process. Google itself will be able to see what messaging resonates more with what user based on how they search. They will then automatically choose what ad copy variation to display using AI. This can help to drive more clicks and impressions because your copy is relevant to the user’s search intent.

Those are just a few examples of how SEO and PPC can be integrated to drive overall campaign results. From maximising SERP coverage, to improving Google’s Quality Score, there are many benefits of taking a holistic approach to search marketing. That’s one of the reasons why we launched our Total Search product, which looks to tackle business challenges using one holistic solution to drive more effective results.

For more information on how we can help you to unite your PPC and SEO campaigns to deliver a greater search marketing strategy contact us here.