Why your business needs SEO and Google Ads to work together

It also comes with challenges such as ongoing work and maintenance, lots of competition from rival businesses who have SEO strategies of their own and uncertainty when it comes to results.

While the benefits certainly outweigh the costs (if you know what you’re doing), understanding these pros and cons is crucial for developing a balanced and effective SEO strategy.

Features of SEO — Pros and Cons

SEO is a crucial aspect of digital marketing, and if executed correctly it will greatly improve your website’s visibility on search engines over the long term.

Overall features of SEO

• One of the main parts of SEO is keyword research, which is where you identify and target relevant keywords that users are likely to search for.
• On-page optimisation is required to improve search engine rankings. This includes editing meta tags, headers and content.
• Off-page optimisation involves building backlinks and promoting your website through external channels to enhance its authority.
• Technical SEO addresses technical aspects of your website including site speed, mobile optimisation and crawlability.
• You’ll need an effective content marketing strategy. Creating and promoting high-quality content will not only attract and engage your target audience, but it will also ensure your site is preferred over your rivals when it comes to search engine results.
• Finally, analytics and reporting is required to monitor and analyse the performance of your SEO strategy. To do this effectively you’ll need to know how to use tools like Google Analytics to track key metrics and make data-driven decisions.

Pros of SEO

1. Increased visibility and traffic: Boost organic traffic to your site by improving your ranking on search engine results pages (SERP). How often have you clicked through to the second page on a Google search? We’re guessing it’s not often, so getting your business close to the top of the pile is a must.
2. Cost-effective: Compared to paid advertising, organic search traffic generated through SEO is cost-effective in the long run, as you’re not paying for each and every click.
3. Credibility and trust: Websites that rank high in search results are often perceived as more credible and trustworthy by users.
4. Better user experience: A well optimised website will always improve the user experience (and therefore increase sales) because you’re improving things like structure and content so that search engines will favour you over your rivals.
5. Targeted traffic: SEO allows you to target specific keywords relevant to your business, attracting users who are actively searching for products or services related to your industry.
6. Long-term, long-lasting: Once established, the benefits of SEO should last for a long time, providing a sustainable source of organic traffic.

Cons of SEO:

1. Time-consuming: We’ve done a lot of SEO campaigns, and they all require on-going maintenance and patience. Results won’t materialise straight away, so be prepared to invest over a 2-4 year period.
2. Algorithm changes: Because search engines are constantly updating their algorithms to create the best user experience, SEO agencies need to keep up with these changes and adjust their strategies accordingly.
3. Competition: If you’re trying to rank for the top spots in certain searches, you’ll obviously be facing a lot of competition from companies who are also paying for SEO.
4. Uncertainty: As outlined above, industry competitiveness and algorithm changes will have a big impact on whether your strategy is successful, meaning success in SEO is not always guaranteed.
5. Technical expertise required: Because SEO requires a decent level of knowledge when it comes to optimisation, coding and analytics, this almost certainly isn’t something you’ll be able to do yourself while also running a business.
6. Production of quality content: SEO relies heavily on high-quality content that is properly optimised for search terms. Producing a lot of relevant, valuable and engaging content is very time-intensive.

Features of PPC campaigns — Pros and Cons

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) does exactly what it says on the tin; advertisers pay a fee each time their ad is clicked.

Overall features of PPC

• Just like with SEO, keyword research is required to select the right keywords that align with your business and the target audience.
• As you might imagine, crafting compelling ad copy is a major part of PPC advertising. Without it you won’t be able to encourage those all important clicks and conversions.
• Bid management is required so you can set and manage bids for keywords to optimise ad placement and maximise ROI.
• PPC gives you various targeting options like demographics, location, type of device and time of time of day when you’re coming up with and adjusting your campaign strategy.
• Ad extensions allow you to enhance your ads with additional information such as site links, callouts, and location information to increase visibility and engagement.
• Implementing conversion tracking is essential so you can track and measure the effectiveness of ads in terms of desired actions like form submissions and product purchases.

Pros of PPC

1. Quick results: PPC campaigns can be instantly activated, generating results as soon as everything goes live.
2. Targeted advertising: There’s no point in showing your stuff to people who have no interest in what you’re selling, and this is a major advantage of PPC. Here you can target based on demographics, location, keywords and a host of other factors.
3. Budget control: You can set daily or campaign limits to effectively manage your costs.
4. Brand exposure: Having your ads appear prominently at the top of search results will vastly increase the exposure of your business.
5. Measurable ROI: Doing a PPC campaign with Google Ads means you’ll get detailed analytics and metrics from a company that is one of the very best at providing detailed analytics and metrics. The key, of course, is how you use this information.
6. Flexibility: Because you can see which ads are performing and which ones are duds, you can adjust and fine-tune your campaign on the fly, making it an extremely flexible and responsive advertising method.

Cons of PPC

1. Cost: Despite the high levels of control granted by PPC campaigns, the cost per click (CPC) can add up quickly, especially for the most competitive keywords.
2. Learning curve: PPC platforms give you a lot to work with, but this can be very overwhelming if you don’t much experience in the field. There is a learning curve to executing an effective strategy, and that’s why we recommend finding a decent SEO agency!
3. Budget dependence: You need to keep in mind that once your budget runs out, so will your ads — potentially leading to a massive drop in visibility and traffic.
4. Ad blindness: It’s possible that some search engine users will learn to ignore sponsored listings, although this is less of an issue on platforms like Google compared to platforms like Facebook. No offence, Facebook.
5. Competition: PPC might seem too good to be true, and it would be if you were the only business using it. Competitive keywords will have a higher CPC, making it difficult for smaller businesses to compete.
6. Ad fraud: Ever clicked on something you didn’t mean to click on? Although they won’t account for a huge amount of traffic, click fraud and invalid clicks can occur, leading to some amount of wastage on clicks that have no chance of converting.

Benefits of using SEO and PPC campaigns together

We can’t say definitively that either SEO or PPC is better, as they both have their own advantages. SEO is for the long game, PPC can give you an immediate boost.

What we do recommend, however, is using them together to create a synergistic effect which greatly maximises your visibility and targeted traffic.

The many benefits of this approach include:

1. Competitive advantage: By doubling your real estate on the SERP by having a paid result at the top or bottom as well as organic results, you can potentially push your rivals further down the page (or even off the first page!), giving you a major competitive advantage when it comes to capturing valuable clicks and leads.
2. Targeted traffic: PPC campaigns give you all the benefits of precise targeting based on demographics, interests, location and other parameters. SEO allows you to target specific keywords and phrases. Put these two together and you should be attracting highly relevant traffic to your site, which ultimately leads to higher conversion rates.
3. Immediate, long-lasting results: If you’ve got a new website or business and you want to see results as quick as possible, this is the best way to establish your online presence and maintain it in the long term.
4. Keyword insights: You can use the information from your PPC campaign related to which keywords drive the most traffic and conversions to refine your SEO strategy, helping you understand which keywords you should be prioritising.
5. A/B testing: Just like the point above, PPC platforms allow for easy split testing of ad copy, landing pages and other elements of your campaign, which you can then use to ensure your website resonates with your target audience.
6. Credibility and trust: The enhanced branding you’ll get from dominating the SERP will mean users are more likely to perceive your brand as authoritative and reliable.
7. Retargeted ads: If a user visits your site via an organic search result, you are then able to track them in Google Ads and show them retargeted ads across the web to increase the chance of getting a conversion.
8. Flexibility and scalability: PPC campaigns give you unrivalled flexibility in terms of budget allocation, targeting options and ad formats. With this, you can complement your ongoing SEO efforts by adjusting your PPC strategy based on performance metrics.

How we can help

Strategic bouts of PPC during a longer term SEO campaign can be very effective for smaller businesses that don’t have a huge budget to pay for clicks every month.

Our marketing retainers were created with exactly this kind of flexibility in mind. We don’t have a one-size fits all approach, and we have plenty of experience working with many different types of businesses with many different needs.

Get in touch with Alloy Marketing today and find out how our SEO service and PPC service campaigns can benefit you.