Why PPC and SEO Go Hand in Hand for Online Businesses
Jun 28th, 2007 by msdanielle
There’s peanut butter and jelly. Gin and tonic. Fred and Wilma. Some things were just made for each other. The same goes for PPC (pay-per-click advertising) and SEO (search engine optimization) when competing for search engine traffic. PPC begets paid traffic, where SEO begets “natural” traffic. Not every web site out there will need both, but if you want to bring your online business to the next level, knowing both will help to keep your bases covered in case you drastically drop in one area or the other.
Here is what PPC and SEO look like in action:
At least that’s what I picture in my mind when I think of the two. If you own an online business, much of your most qualified and relevant traffic will come from Google — either through natural search engine results pages (SERP’s) or via AdWords advertisements — which is why I used their SERP in this example.
Ultimatecoupons dot com is currently ranking number one for the term online coupons in the natural search results. Couponcabin dot com is ranking number one for the same term in paid sponsored advertising (AdWords), as well as number four in the natural rankings. Of the two, Couponcabin has more bases covered since I don’t find Ultimatecoupons advertising in the first three pages of paid advertising. At the moment, they don’t need to pay for this search term, however, if for some reason they were to lose their ranking, the quickest way to supplement the lost traffic would be to pay for AdWords traffic until they make their way back up to the top of the ranks. (Side note: I’m not sure that Couponcabin needs to be number one in PPC in this example since their natural search ranking is so high. If they are paying the minimum cost-per-click (CPC), then I suppose it’s OK. But if they’re paying through the nose for that top spot, they could most likely gain the same amount of traffic for spot three or four for less money.)
In addition, Ebates dot com (PPC spot #4) does not appear in the first three pages of natural search results, and therefore must use AdWords in order to compete for this traffic, at least until they start to rank, if ever, for online coupons. If they do not optimize their site to rank for this term, they will need to indefinitely pay Google for this traffic. Stopping their AdWords program would most likely result in a drastic loss of traffic since online coupons is so highly competitive a term.
In this simple example above, you can see why PPC and SEO go hand in hand when operating an online business. Supplementing low levels of natural traffic with PPC will enable you to stay afloat in all targeted search terms, and help you cover your bases at all times. When you think of PPC and SEO, does it look like the picture above? LOL
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They do say that 1/2 of all advertising dollars are wasted, the masters are the ones that find out which half.
I have heard a few people state they thought that it creates a higher trust level for the product/service you are promoting if you have both natural and paid listings, but I tend to think the latter is in the half wasted category.
you mean people doing both at all times are in the half wasted category? i agree. there’s no need to rank all kw’s on pg 1 for both ppc and seo. it’s a balancing act. couponcabin might be wasting some money. and it doesn’t make me trust them more, but then again i’m a marketer.
Marketers rarely trust, we might now be the best to answer. I will call and ask my mother who just found out about the “Internets” last week.
lol, I agree. You always need a second opinion from the common user.
By the way, Danielle, when I saw the title of this post in my RSS feed, I thought you were going to talk about Quality Score Optimization (http://www.pepperjamsearch.com/ppc-management.html). But this is a different take on the issue. Nice post.
i hope to touch on all of the elements individually. i’ve discussed increasing lpqs and setting up campaign structure. getting into the nitty gritty of ad testing, bidding, and raising ctr may come later…i think… this was more of a theoretical post. thanks for the kind feedback
hahahahaha!! internets…that was funny
PPC and SEO
Black and White
Ying and Yang
Yea … they all go together!
Great Post!
Darin
nice anchor text
i am slightly jealous
i still haven’t gotten mine. where does all the time in the day go?! 108 tutorials…*sigh*
thanks darin!
I have the same picture in my mind about the SEO and PPC, although I naturally seem to skim right over the PPC links and focus my efforts on the natural search results when I am looking for something.
If I cannot find what I am looking for after checking a few sites, I may resort to clicking one of the PPC listings but that happes very rarely. Given that tendency, I would be very hesitant to add a PPC ad if I were already in the top listings but you bring up a good point about using it in the event you drop from the top spots.
I do exactly the same thing, I always look to natural results first. To put it in an analogy… I prefer a musician that actually has talent and has become popular as opposed to a no-talent musician that has a lot of money and has become popular by “buying his/her way” to the top.
Of course, this isn’t always the case and is in fact a poor way to look at online advertising but thats what my instincts tell me when I’m searching.
@derek - i think it’s the “marketer’s effect” where we all sort of ignore the ads on the right when doing our own searches. but they do work for many non-marketers, and businesses using PPC should be familiar with where their competitors stand.
yea i’m pretty much the same with you again here. but not everyone is like us. it’s like commercials too. some just are obviously not targeted toward me and you. many people in our generation are more savvy to advertising and doesn’t want to be marketed to directly, or “sold” on anything. but every market is different too. it’s all about testing and knowing your audience… oh and thanks for the kind words! 
@jon - Hi!
Great post Danielle! I’ve never really considered PPC advertising but instead focus solely on SEO because I like to get something for nothing
nice diagram. you PPC guru
There is an interesting thing I see on the organic listings there. Couponchief.com which is #2. They are big users of paid blog advertising.
[…] the way, I’d recommend you check out Danielle’s post on PPC and SEO as well as the discussion in the comments — it’s a very good read! If you like this […]
Nice post!!
r
the graphics are mind-boggling
aww HEART! i’m going to miss you!
Speedlinking - 02 Jul 2007…
With another month coming to an end, I am going to use this edition of Speedlinking to recognize the Top Commentators from the month of July.
We’ve had some interesting discussions and I appreciate everyone that takes the time to share their thou…
[…] the way, I’d recommend you check out Danielle’s post on PPC and SEO as well as the discussion in the comments — it’s a very good read! If you like this post, you […]
Love the paintbrush diagram.
yea i hope you guys aren’t too jealous that i can write pretty well AND i have crazy photoshop skillz…
it’s hard to be this talented … yea right!
[…] Click method, like Google Adwords, then being ranked at the top of searches is really important as Ms. Danielle points […]
[…] Aren’t Peanut butter and jelly great together ? Ops, I meant to ask about SEO and PPC. […]