So you need powerful landing pages for your PPC campaigns, but you’re worried about disrupting your overall SEO strategy. You’re not alone. The rivalry between proponents of search engine optimization (SEO) and pay per click (PPC) advertising has always been fierce, but can the two marketing options work together? Of course they can! Historically, SEO and PPC are seen as two very different strategies. SEO is long-term, holistic, and cautious. PPC is short-term, immediate, and more risky. However, in terms of on page optimization, PPC and SEO have a lot in common. Successfully harnessing the power of both PPC and SEO strategies to strengthen your landing pages through great content, keywords, and navigation is the key to providing your website with better overall reach and rankings.
Content
Whether optimized for organic search or as part of a paid campaign, great on page content is integral for any successful webpage. Offering unique, interesting content on your SEO and PPC pages will continuously engage users and build a strong, trusted reputation for your page. Let’s say you sell a basic commodity like pencils. By providing additional or more relevant information than your competitors (e.g. pencil comparisons, tips on using pencils for marketing, back to school tips, etc.), you can give users a reason to visit and convert on your site. Relevant content yields higher quality scores for PPC keywords, and it will also indicate to search engine robots that the page has more organic relevance for search queries.
Best practices for PPC pages traditionally include having more concise, highly relevant content with a clear call to action dominating the page. For example, a PPC landing page for our pencil company might feature a single option, a yellow #2 pencil with a large click-to-buy call to action. A page optimized for both SEO and PPC would again offer the #2 pencil for purchase, but would include additional options such as related products or a more extensive textual description of the product. SEO pages are still targeted but can incorporate more textual elements that engage the user with a less blatant call to action. Ultimately though, both PPC and organic search landing pages should appeal to users with a variety of expectations by finding the appropriate balance between a narrow and focused content scope.
For both SEO and PPC campaigns, your on page content must target the right audience. Our pencil company homepage would include high-level content more appropriate for branding purposes, but our yellow #2 pencil product page would include more targeted content focused toward sales. However, both pages would incorporate content related to the campaign-specified keywords or ads, giving visitors flexibility and options.
Keywords
Including the appropriate keywords on page is crucial for both gaining higher PPC quality scores and organic rankings. Thus, incorporating keywords seamlessly into page content should be your first step toward on page optimization. It should sound natural – you don’t want to mention “yellow #2 pencil” dozens of times in a bed of unreadable text (aka keyword stuffing)! But if your site is attempting to rank for a term, your content should naturally include mentions of the keyword.
For PPC landing pages in particular, you want to make sure someone who clicked on the ad understands the connection of your page to their search query. PPC landing pages should include the keywords that trigger the ad impressions. For example, if “Buy yellow #2 pencils” is a keyword in your ad group, you would ideally have the same words prominently displayed on the landing page next to an option to buy yellow #2 pencils. In addition, “Yellow #2 Pencils” would ideally be in an H1 tag to indicate organic relevance to search engines.
As with content, PPC and SEO campaigns can utilize keywords with different levels of focus. PPC offers the ability to rank for broad, highly competitive keywords by using a bidding system with controlled placement. SEO reduces cost, and initial campaigns are typically focused on long tail keywords. Combining SEO and PPC allows a newly launched campaign to reap the benefit of high rankings for broad keywords while reducing campaign budgets with long tail organic rankings, and the scope of both options can be adjusted as search efforts mature. When a page is supported by SEO and PPC campaigns, the keyword footprint can be larger due to the integration of organic and paid targeted keywords. For example, it might be impossible for your site to achieve high organic rankings for a very competitive keyword like “pencils” using only a SEO approach, but you may be able to achieve a top paid listing using a PPC campaign with geographical and temporal targeting.
Navigation
A major differentiator of PPC best practice (vs. SEO best practice) is that landing pages might incorporate modified or pared down navigational features to keep viewers focused on conversion and discourage them from leaving the page after seeing something else that caught their eye. The same goes for links that could lead the user away from the specified goal. Limited navigation or linking could be detrimental when optimizing for search engines, so keeping full capabilities while improving page flow is an easy way to manage SEO tactics while also optimizing for PPC conversions. In other words, you want a visitor who came to your site from a yellow #2 pencils PPC campaign to easily be able to search through all kinds of pencils if they desire.
Different styles of navigation can greatly affect how visitors act on your landing pages. A clear, efficient page flow can help engage a visitor and establish a professional, trusted page atmosphere; but a well-designed page flow can also guide users strictly toward making a conversion. Funneling someone into a conversion path may be appropriate for the yellow #2 pencil PPC landing page, but not quite as optimal for the more general content-focused SEO pencil homepage. A person clicking a PPC ad might be further along in the buying cycle than a searcher who clicks on an organic listing. However, you don’t want to restrict that visitor too much in case they are interested in other parts of your site. Keep navigation targeted for conversions but also flexible enough to allow users to visit and gain trust from other site features.
Conclusion
Tapping into the benefits of the relationship between PPC and SEO can have an explosive effect on your brand’s site. It’s not PPC vs. SEO. It’s PPC and SEO. By strategizing keyword strategies for both paid and organic search mediums, you can acquire short-term and long-term rankings that will boost your click-through rate and increase the online shelf space of your brand. SEO and PPC are often thought of as independent tools, but with the right strategy they can work together to increase your brand’s overall success in reaching your target market.