September 14, 2017
The online market is dynamic. A digital marketing strategy that works one month, may falter the next, leaving you scratching your head. This makes it tricky for small companies and startups to develop strategies that meet the client’s expectations. Here at WooRank, we’re looking to help agencies create successful strategies.
Where To Start
We believe in a holistic approach to digital marketing, paying particular attention to the combination of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC).
SEO is the process to increase a search engine’s ranking of your site, with the use of targeted keywords and high-quality content. The core components of this process are:
- On-page Optimization – Involves altering metadata and keyword density to allow search engines to easily crawl your site.
- External Links – Backlinks to your site from a number of sources to add relevance to your site in a particular niche.
- PPC – This is a strategy where businesses only pay for advertising when users follow the link to their landing page. It is up to the website owner to make this strategy successful by creating relevant traffic that will convert.
This can be a very successful strategy with an enticing risk/reward balance as there tends to be a relatively low cost-per-click.
PPC and SEO, in general, are both looking to increase the viewership of your company, but for smaller businesses, it can be quite tricky to combine all these approaches effectively.
But why should you combine these two strategies in the first place? Google has concluded that even when advertisers are showing up as the first organic result for a keyword, 50% of clicks they get on ads were not replaced by clicks on organic results when the ads were not present. So you will double your chances of clicks and conversions if you are showing as both an ad and the number one organic search result for a query.
In this example, you can see that Amazon.com has effectively combined their SEO and PPC campaigns. Not only is Amazon the top paid result for the keyword “rent movies,” but is also the top organic search result (sorry, Blockbuster.)
What Google’s study determined is that without that top ad result Amazon is showing, the business would be missing out on 50% of clicks to their site.
Struggles Of Small Businesses
For young businesses, it is important to rapidly build up your reputation and audience. SEO and PPC are great ways to gain visibility and successful strategies can rapidly increase your visibility. Combining well-targeted PPC adverts while ranking highly on those same keywords means that you are providing two access routes for users and creating a sense of authority around your company. So now you have the users, it’s now time to start converting.
Benefits Of Conversion Rate Optimization
Getting customers to your site is only half the game, you still need to make sure that your site lives up to the promises made in your PPC adverts and meta-descriptions. Once you have the visitors you need to keep them on your site.
If you have access to your website analytics, then check your bounce rate (visitors who leave before interacting with the site) as a metric for success. This could be for a number of reasons affecting usability, such as aesthetics or load times.
Enticing Your Customers
You need to make it as easy as possible for your customers to convert, by funneling them along the process. There are four aspects you should consider for this:
- First, your content needs to connect with your customers and must be easy to understand.
- Your links should be obvious for easier navigation around your site.
- Your website design should be appropriate for your company and more importantly be tailored to what your customers are looking for.
- A big gripe can be dead pages, so make sure everything on your site is fully operational.
The Perfect Process
It’s true that there is an element of chance in digital marketing strategies, but you can still increase your odds by having well thought out PPC and SEO strategies. Always keep in mind the user experience and focus on all aspects of digital marketing, not just aspects in isolation. Follow the advice in this article and you will put yourself in a strong position to increase and maintain the success of your website.