Why SEO and PPC Campaigns Should Be Run Simultaneously

It’s common to come across debates regarding which of the two is better – SEO or Pay Per Click (PPC). In reality, you could do with bringing both of them into your wider marketing strategy. 

But this still raises the question as to which of the two you should prioritise. For some, it’s a case of getting an SEO strategy underway, wait until it hits its stride and then moving on to PPC. For others, it’s the other way around. 

Both SEO and PPC have the potential to generate traffic in generous volumes. Nevertheless, anyone looking to maximise their ROI might want to think about running both PPC and SEO campaigns at the same time.

Here’s why:

SEO Takes Time 

For one thing, even the most outstanding SEO strategies take time to reach fruition. What’s more, it is fundamentally impossible to accurately predict how long it will take an SEO strategy to reach X or Y result. It simply takes as long as it takes. In the meantime, there may be a little to no difference with regard to the traffic your website pulls in. 

By contrast, PPC is all about immediate impact when you need it most. Rather than waiting endlessly to see what happens, your PPC ads are published both prominently and near instantly. While your SEO strategy is on its way to getting the job done, your PPC strategy delivers a steady and potentially strong stream of traffic. 

Paid Ads Appear More Prominently 

Irrespective of how strong your SEO strategy is, you’ll always play second fiddle to paid ads. Realistically, you’re unlikely to reach the very top of the SERP rankings for the most competitive keywords. It’s important to remember that above all else, Google exists to make money – pure and simple. Precisely why Google gives those who hand over cold-hard cash priority in their results page listings.

With a PPC campaign, you have the opportunity to position your ads right at the very top of the page. If the best you’re managing so far with SEO is tenth position, you might find PPC useful for boosting traffic to your page. Something that could help your SEO strategy – Google factors visitor numbers and page hits into its SERP indexation algorithms. So once again, a combination of SEO and PPC wins the day.

Lessons Learned

Last but not least, PPC campaigns can be used to learn invaluable lessons for your SEO strategies, and vice-versa. By continuously monitoring their respective progress, you’ll tap into a world of data for the continuous improvement of both campaigns.

Particularly when it comes to keyword data and related analytics, PPC campaigns can be worth their weight in gold. Once again, Google typically reserves the most valuable data and insights for those that are willing to pay for it. Hence, your paid Google ad campaigns could teach you a lot more about your business and your audience than an SEO strategy alone.