Everyone is feeling the pinch. With recession fears lingering, budgets are still under scrutiny and digital marketers must demonstrate his ROI on every move. CEOs are now looking at all investments under a microscope. In short, CMOs should invest in solutions that are part of a broader strategy and, more importantly, deliver financial ROI.
Gartner data shows that CEOs Plans to further invest in digital And they expect dividends in the form of top-line and bottom-line financial impact. For search marketers, it requires a focus on consumer intent. Brands must rely heavily on performance channels with the best intentions. So search takes precedence and Google seems to continue to dominate within search. advertising revenue Hundreds of billions, with nearly 60% of the global search advertising market.
Searches (both paid and organic) are by definition high intent, as users are actively looking for specific products and services, and their choice of keywords clearly communicates their interests. Additionally, the search can provide many real estate properties that are cost effective. Between paid and organic campaigns, a brand can appear multiple times in his SERPs and get traffic from multiple sources.
With over 30% of search traffic clicking on the first organic result in a listing, it’s no exaggeration to say that learning how to get that coveted first result is worth it.
Aligning paid and organic search campaigns creates opportunities not only to spend more efficiently to optimize search results, but also to reallocate budget to achieve big-picture goals such as increasing market share. increase.
So the Adthena team met with partners at: conductorare the team behind the leading organic marketing platform and have put together the 5 best ways to ensure your paid and organic strategies work together to maximize your ROI.
5 ways to make SEO and PPC work together
1. Align your paid spend with organic performance insights
Are your regular organic performers ranking lower than usual? Did an algorithm update slow your organic performance? By gathering insights through weekly keyword research, you can closely monitor your organic performance and use that information to make paid search decisions. If for some reason your organic SERPs are underperforming, you can inject paid juice to maintain page 1 visibility while organic catches up. Paid search can help make up for lost traffic and keep you in the game if your ranking has dropped due to your recent demotion in organic search.
What if on the other end of the spectrum your organic performance is killing it and you can’t see any paid competition? It’s a great time to stop wasting (if you have top organic spots and no paid competition).
Lone Ranger keywords generate millions of wasted paid search spend each month across the industry, and many brands unnecessarily add to these terms simply because it takes effort to identify them. I keep spending.
But now automation can easily solve that problem. Adthena’s new solution, brand activatorhelps brands save up to 20% on branded searches by automatically pausing bidding on Lone Ranger terms and resuming bidding if a competitor re-enters the auction.
This automatic toggle switch can save you a lot of money, especially if your search environment is unstable. For example, by identifying multiple Lone Ranger terms in large numbers, Avanti West Coast Automatically stopped unnecessary budget spending on these terms, saving 32% each month Without giving up clicks to your competitors.
Organic insights are a great way to help manage the gas pedal of your paid campaigns. If your organic is underperforming, you can use more gas. Anyway, when the organic wins, the gas is low. Also, if you want to fully assert your SERP dominance, and is your CPC reasonable? Make the most of Paid Search Pedal and multiply your organic success.
2. Use SEM Performance Insights to Develop Content Strategy
A recent study by Adthena and Conductor showed that 70% of marketers are more familiar with SEO than with SEM. If you are one of them, it’s time to get some information from your PPC colleagues.
At the very least, you should know the pay terms that perform best. SEM is a great channel for testing keywords you want to rank for organically. You can use these SEM insights to inform you of high-cost paid keywords that make more sense to target in organic search.
Understanding paid performance can help you invest in great content that incorporates high-value terms. It also helps you get the most out of your budget by spending less on costly terms. See how Citi partnered with Conduct. Break down information silos between paid and organic teams Boost your keyword targeting efforts in SEM and SEO.
3. Strengthen your competitive research
Are your industry competitors also your SERP competitors? There may be some crossover, but your biggest rival for organic rankings could be Wikipedia or news outlets. and it is imperative to plan your tactics accordingly.
Your biggest competitors may be publishers and content creators. It’s important to examine the types and formats of content that drive competition and find ways to create more value with the resources you offer your audience. Do you share how-to video content, comparison lists, and in-depth product reviews? How can you apply these tactics to your website content?
How are your competitors performing paid vs. organic? Are there any gaps you can exploit?
Which campaigns are most effective and create similar content? Who is ahead of you and why? Don’t just put money in an auction before you understand the full competition . Use SEM insights to identify what your competitors are bidding on and target those areas with PPC and SEO where you are most influential and can help you outperform your major competitors You can be sure that you are investing dollars in
4. Follow SEO best practices when creating paid campaigns
This is a PPC checklist taken directly from the SEO playbook.
- Avoid self-destruction. Duplicate content can cause Google to slow down your performance. So, for example, on a PPC landing page, if you duplicate existing organic content, not indexing that page may improve your ranking.
- Don’t compete with your partner. If you have multiple domains, partners, or affiliates, make sure you’re not bidding on them in paid search and paying artificially inflated CPCs as a result. Look at your campaigns holistically and assign the best keywords to each partner.
- Make your search engine easier to useFor example, optimize your metadata and do keyword research to identify valuable long tail and question keywords.
- Maximize SEO value by adjusting page URLs (if you can.)
- Get technical ducks in a rowFast loading speeds and an overall better UX drive conversions from paid and organic traffic. It also benefits your organic rankings by lowering your bounce rate.
5. Keep everyone on the same page (Page 1!)
Nearly 40% of marketers surveyed feel that their SEO and SEM teams are not aligned. It’s a simple accomplishment to improve your digital ROI. Improve communication and collaboration across teams to create a harmonious, holistic search strategy that maximizes her ROI for the business.
Agencies can prove that paid and organic teams work together to deliver more value to their clients. The same is true within the marketing organization. Regular meetings, complete transparency, and a shared sense of purpose help the entire organization spend wisely and perform well.
Can you save by reducing waste and increasing search efficiency? You can save your budget or strategically reinvest to gain market share and turn a bleak economic environment into an opportunity for growth.
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For a deeper dive, including an audience Q&A, Watch full webinar With Alice Tonks, Senior Customer Success Manager at Adthena and Ryan Maloney, SEO Success Manager at Conductor.
This article was written by Adthena in partnership with Conductor.