Throughout my career, I’ve noticed SEO and PPC teams rarely sync and share data and strategies to support each other. This is a major missed opportunity that limits each channel’s full potential.
This article highlights seven practical synergies both your PPC and SEO teams can implement to drive even more revenue for your business.
Ultimately, both are focused on increasing conversions from Google and other search engines, so it makes sense to bring these teams together for greater success.
1. Keyword research
SEO requires significant resources to produce valuable content that ranks well. Instead of just driving clicks, SEO teams should prioritize creating content that converts customers.
While clicks are often a key performance indicator (KPI), they hold little value if they don’t lead to conversions. SEO efforts should target keywords that drive conversions, not just traffic.
Thanks to PPC, we have conversion rates by keyword and search term. Since Google doesn’t share this data from organic search, let’s pull PPC data to understand which keywords to enhance our SEO efforts.
Share PPC search keyword data with your SEO team
Pull 12 months of search term PPC data.
It’s important that you pull search term data and not keyword data. Keyword data isn’t necessarily the search terms users typed in that drive the click.
Pull non-branded data, as you are generally in the top spot for organic.
Filter based on the top search terms by conversions
Share the top search terms by conversions with your SEO team so they’re focused on high-converting keywords.
These are the money keywords for which the SEO team should start creating content to rank. If they’re working well for PPC, they will also work well for SEO.
Dig deeper: 6 vital lenses for effective keyword research
Some SEOs tend to emphasize meta descriptions and meta titles less, even though these elements serve as the “ad copy” for organic search results. This lack of focus can be a missed opportunity.
At our agency, we often find pages missing meta descriptions or using titles and descriptions that haven’t been well thought out or tested.
To put it another way, would a PPC marketer just create one set of ad copy and let it be for years? Unfortunately, that’s what we see in SEO.
We can use PPC to make sure you have the best meta description and title to earn that organic click. Having a higher CTR will get you more organic traffic and influence ranking.
How to optimize SEO metadata through PPC
Identify the top three pages of organic traffic (or organic revenue).
Create a PPC campaign. Each ad group will have exact match keywords, targeting the queries tied to each respective page.
Within the ads, test two copies:
One variation that closely resembles the existing metadata.
One variation that tests a new meta title and description.
Remember to pin headlines and descriptions in the order you want them to appear.
Whatever has the highest CTR should be the meta title or description you should use for that page.
By doing so, you should experience an uptick in CTR and if you do this for your top pages, this could have a meaningful business impact.
3. Landing page UX
Landing page user experience is crucial for driving conversions.
PPC teams typically focus more on this because they pay for traffic and aim to direct visitors to pages with the highest conversion rates.
On the other hand, many SEO practitioners prioritize traffic over conversions.
By collaborating, PPC teams can share valuable insights on the best-performing landing pages to improve SEO strategies.
How to use PPC UX experience to help SEO
Sit down with the PPC team and review the top converting landing pages.
Determine the top attributes that seem to be common among the top converting landing pages.
Of the top organic landing pages by traffic, see how the UX can be upleveled by incorporating best practices from the PPC team.
Dig deeper: How to handle PPC landing pages for SEO
4. Diversify outside of Google
Google is big and drives the majority of traffic, but it’s not the only search engine in town. If PPC and SEO teams also focus on other search engines, they could get 10-20% of customers annually.
How PPC and SEO teams can diversify their efforts
PPC
Migrate your top Google Ads campaigns to Microsoft Bing. This way, you’ll advertise not only on Bing but also on their network of search engines, including AOL, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and more.
Microsoft Ads generally offers cheaper CPC (as it’s not as competitive as Google) and can be a great platform for B2B advertisers, given the strong LinkedIn data integration.
The platform makes it very simple to migrate your top campaigns. Just make sure to:
Have a conversion tracking established on Microsoft.
Set budgets to 10-20% of your total Google budget.
SEO
Ensure you’re on Bing Webmaster Tools and that all your top pages are indexed and accessible via Bing.
Dig deeper: How to reach new audiences with multi-platform search advertising
Around 96% of site visitors won’t convert during their first session, even on sites with healthy conversion rates. This doesn’t mean they’ll never convert – just that they aren’t ready yet. A strong remarketing strategy can help turn these visitors into customers later.
PPC teams have extensive experience with remarketing, one of the most effective campaigns introduced in the last 15 years. Organic teams should collaborate closely with PPC to maximize conversions from organic traffic through remarketing efforts.
The SEO team should pull the top pages by organic traffic and share these with the PPC team.
Leaning on expertise from the PPC team, create a remarketing strategy that brings the organic visitors one step closer to conversion. The remarketing CTA must align with the intent of the visitor. For example:
If you’re remarketing from a product page, you could simply offer a coupon code to drive conversions. These users have high intent and are researching products to purchase, so offer something to help them make that decision.
If you’re remarketing from low-intent pages (i.e., educational pages), don’t drive them to buy now, as they’re not at that point. Rather, get them one step closer to purchasing by:
Drive to a newsletter signup for more information.
Send them to another educational page with a slightly lower funnel and closer to purchase intent.
If you have a YouTube channel, you can link Google Ads to YouTube and remarket to your video viewers and subscribers. This is another effective strategy to make YouTube viewers convert.
Dig deeper: How to combine Google Ads with other channels to retarget, nurture and convert
6. Product feed optimization
For ecommerce marketers, optimizing product feeds is crucial for effective PPC campaigns. It can benefit SEO, too.
Google Shopping now offers free organic product listings, so an optimized feed can drive free traffic and boost your shopping and performance max campaigns.
Key product feed optimization areas to focus on
Price: Is your price competitive with the market to earn the click and sale?
Categories and subcategories: Make sure each product is in the most relevant category and subcategories. Remember, the categorization Google sets isn’t always right. Sometimes a product could land into two categories that should be tested against each other.
Targeted keywords: Ensure your targeted keywords are present throughout each product.
Images: Test different images to see what works best to earn the click. For example: product images vs. lifestyle images. AI can be a helpful tool in creating different image variations.
Product details: Ensure product details are compelling and include the key targeted keywords. For example, frontload the targeted keywords as that can help Google prioritize these keywords for ranking purposes.
Dig deeper: Shopping graph optimization: The future of ecommerce SEO
7. Dominating SEO and PPC for your top performing keywords
Of the keywords that are the core business drivers, put together a plan to own these keywords across your search marketing program.
By working to optimize PPC and SEO to own top positioning on these keywords you will:
Increase the likelihood of earning the click. Majority of searchers don’t click on ads, so it’s good to be present from both a paid and organic perspective.
Owning the ad and top organic results creates double exposure. This can help create solid branding by having your business featured twice to searchers.
How to corner the market on top converting keywords
List out the top keywords that drive the majority of revenue for the business. You might be surprised that the 80/20 rule will likely come into play. 80% of your search revenue will likely come from just 20% of keywords (or less).
Map out current positioning from both PPC and SEO.
Put together a plan to increase visibility on PPC and SEO.
PPC is easier as it’s more focused on ad copy, bids and budget.
SEO will take longer, as that includes content and linking strategy.
Dig deeper: SEO vs. PPC: Differences, pros, cons & an integrated approach
Bridge the SEO-PPC gap to boost your organic and paid search efforts
It’s time to get your SEO and PPC teams coordinated. Implementing these strategies will drive more traffic and conversions across both channels for your business.
Contributing authors are invited to create content for Search Engine Land and are chosen for their expertise and contribution to the search community. Our contributors work under the oversight of the editorial staff and contributions are checked for quality and relevance to our readers. The opinions they express are their own.