If you are a business early in your development and you are looking to get ahead in the world of digital marketing, a bit of research may have led you to the slightly intimidating acronyms ‘SEO’ and ‘PPC’.
For those who don’t know, the former stands for Search Engine Optimisation while the latter stands for pap per click advertising. While doing both individually will give you some benefits, they cannot work in isolation if you want sustained business growth over time.
SEO
SEO, as the name suggests, focuses on the ranking of websites in search engines and how to get them higher up the search listings. There are various ways you can structure a site to improve the usability for the search engine crawlers and increase the relevance your page has to a given search query.
Search Engine Optimisation takes time and is very much an ongoing process. Due to this, many companies prefer enlisting the services of a digital marketing company that provides SEO services (check out sites like https://digitaledgeint.com/ for reference) to manage the process on a day-to-day basis. The typical time frame for a good search marketing campaign will range from 3 to 6 months, and this will need to be sustained longer for strong results. This is a lot longer than the results that can be seen from a PPC campaign. However, without strong organic (unpaid) search results you will struggle to build up a long-term customer base that will consistently re-enter the buying process with you.
PPC
Pay Per Click involves paying directly for the privilege of having your listing showed on search engines. You are entered into a live auction with other competitors and whoever has the highest bid (and best quality score) will have their ad shown. PPC will get your listings to the top of search engines in a short space of time; however, it is not good for a sustained marketing strategy in isolation.
Additionally, in many cases PPC only gets your potential customers to your website, it is up to your landing page copy, design and calls to action to convert them from prospects to loyal clients.
Creating a holistic strategy incorporating both disciplines
As mentioned in the intro, creating your digital marketing strategy requires you to consider all the different aspects of marketing. To achieve this, you can hire a specialized marketing agency that can devise a unique and effective marketing plan for you. Depending on your type of business, you can contact a marketing company (for example, PatientNow for medical practitioners) that can offer you the best marketing solutions for your business needs. This way, you can ensure that your digital marketing strategy is tailored to your specific goals and challenges.
Whilst there are little concrete synergies in how SEO and PPC complement each other, there are a few soft ones. A well-optimised page that allows relevant adverts to be developed from it will work well for both SEO and PPC.
Find a digital marketing agency that can create the whole mix for your business
Having to deal with both SEO and PPC may be somewhat intimidating, especially if you have to work on the other aspects of your business. Finding an expert marketing agency to guide you through the process will make sure you get started in digital marketing on the right track. Agencies like the one found at https://lineardesign.com/services/google-ads-management/ can also help you in specialist areas such as Google Ads.
Also, if you outsource your marketing to an external agency you will have more time to contribute to the value-adding activities in your company. A great place to start with a digital marketing strategy is to arrange a bespoke SEO audit for your company.