Sat 4 Jul 2009
The more time spent focusing on Internet marketing, the more commonality I find between different marketing disciplines. Take pay-per-click advertising for example. PPC can be one of the most powerful tools you use to improve the effectiveness of your search engine optimization campaigns.
Just a like a company’s house list, the information they gather from their own PPC campaigns can provide a significant boost to the effectiveness of their search engine optimization efforts. The key is to know what information you’re looking for and how to use it to generate qualified visitors to your website.
One of the most effective ways to use PPC is to drive qualified traffic to your website. Essentially, the way that pay-per-click works is that targeted keywords trigger an ad to appear. When the ad is displayed, users click-through to a landing page or website. These qualified visitors are the one’s you want. With a little investigation and knowledge of the specific keywords that generate conversions, you can better focus your efforts for finding and attracting the right visitors to your website.
The concept that I teach in SEO training is the most effective way to combine pay-per-click advertising with search engine optimization is to focus on conversions. What keywords have you promoted through pay per click advertising that led to conversions? If you’ve been running PPC for a while and you are still unsure, then consider expanding your analytic capabilities to include Google conversion tracking.
After you’ve done your research and you know which terms generate sales, then you’re ready to start your search engine optimization campaign. Focus your SEO on converting terms and achieving top rankings for them. By doing so, you can not only generate traffic through natural search results, you can generate sales. This lowers you costs and improves conversions.
Think about it this way. If you are using pay per click marketing to promote your product or service, then you have a particular keyword or keyword phrase that not only generates traffic but generates conversions as well. This is valuable information because this is what your seo campaign should be focused on. Put your energy into optimizing for this winning keyword phrase and you’ll enjoy more targeted traffic and can cut back on your PPC expense.
After you’ve gotten more sophistication around converting pay per click terms and started an optimization campaign, it’s time to focus on other elements that can help with conversion. One of the most important is your web site and landing page. Most people work to optimize search terms that drive individuals to a web site. If that’s the case with you consider looking at your home page or web site landing page with a new perspective. Once a visitor is there, do you have a clear call to action? If not, consider revamping your landing pages to get browsers to take action.
Whether you’re new to SEO or consider yourself a search engine optimization expert, leveraging your pay-per-click advertising is the best investment you can make. Determine which keywords generate the type of traffic that is most valuable to you and optimize around these terms. They will generate more traffic and revenue at a lower cost.