How do you leverage SEO and SEM to boost your organic and paid traffic? If you are running digital marketing campaigns, you need to optimize them for both search engines and users. In this article, you will learn some practical tips to improve your SEO and SEM strategies and achieve better results.
SEO stands for search engine optimization, which is the process of improving your website's visibility and relevance for organic search results. SEM stands for search engine marketing, which is the process of using paid ads to reach your target audience and drive them to your website. Both SEO and SEM aim to increase your traffic, conversions, and revenue, but they require different approaches and techniques.
One of the key factors for SEO success is keyword research. You need to identify the words and phrases that your potential customers are using to search for your products or services, and optimize your content accordingly. You can use tools like Google Keyword Planner, Moz, or SEMrush to find relevant and high-volume keywords, and analyze your competitors' ranking and performance. Another important factor is technical SEO, which involves improving your website's speed, security, usability, and crawlability. You can use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, or Screaming Frog to audit your website and fix any issues that might affect your SEO. Finally, you need to create high-quality and engaging content that provides value to your audience and answers their questions. You can use tools like Yoast, Grammarly, or Hemingway to improve your writing and readability, and include images, videos, or infographics to make your content more appealing.
By running all your keyword broadly through Google Ads, you can start to determine what keywords would work for SEO - assuming you have conversion tracking setup, and you are monitoring actual search term impressions in Google, then adding negative terms to reduce wasted clicks.
One of the key factors for SEM success is ad copy. You need to write compelling and relevant ads that capture your audience's attention and persuade them to click on your website. You can use tools like Google Ads, Bing Ads, or Facebook Ads to create and manage your campaigns, and test different variations of your headlines, descriptions, and keywords. Another important factor is landing page optimization, which involves designing and testing your web pages to increase your conversions and reduce your bounce rate. You can use tools like Unbounce, Instapage, or Leadpages to create and optimize your landing pages, and include clear and concise headlines, benefits, calls to action, and social proof. Finally, you need to measure and analyze your SEM performance and ROI. You can use tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, or HubSpot to track and report your metrics, and identify your strengths and weaknesses.
Patience is also important when it comes to SEM. You need to understand that campaigns may not work right away but that once you gather data you can make minor improvements that can boost your results. Hand in hand is having the proper mindset that to make money, you need to spend money. I come across businesses that have said SEM hasn’t worked for them only to realize they’ve spent only a few hundred dollars in total. And lastly, as great as your campaigns might be to reach people interested in what you’re offering, you need to have a strong internal follow up process. Not every person that calls you is ready to spend their hard earned money today, but they might be ready next week if you follow up.
SEO and SEM are not mutually exclusive, but rather complementary and synergistic. By combining them, you can maximize your exposure and reach, and take advantage of the advantages of both organic and paid traffic. To integrate SEO and SEM, you can use your SEO keyword research to inform your SEM campaigns and vice versa. This will help you to identify new opportunities and gaps in both markets, and target them accordingly. Additionally, you can use your SEM data to improve your SEO content, such as optimizing headlines, descriptions, and keywords. Furthermore, you can use your SEO content to support your SEM campaigns by linking your ads to your relevant and valuable content, and increase your credibility and authority. Finally, you can use your SEM campaigns to boost your SEO ranking by driving more traffic and engagement to your website, and improving your signals and reputation.
SEM campaigns are a good way to determine that which keywords are getting you the most conversions with the highest CTR's and then it means those keywords are the primary keywords that you can optimise for from SEO perspective. So this is how you can combine : what keywords works for SEM + make it rank organically on SEO = get the maximum performance for your brand!
In my experience, while working on integrated campaigns I've heavily focused on, what I like to call it as, "OneSearch" approach. Let us say if the website is at its initial stages, with little to no authority / equity as compared to competitors, it makes much more sense to allocate higher budgets to SEM, while in parallel we build a strong content engine following best SEO and content practices. And as your content engine expands and eventually your authority improves, you can start focusing more on ranking the content organically and reducing dependency on SEM.
Staying ahead of the curve in SEO and SEM requires keeping up with the latest trends and best practices. To do this, you can subscribe to the blogs, newsletters, or podcasts of the major search engines, such as Google, to learn from their experts and case studies. Additionally, you can follow industry leaders and influencers on social media, blogs, or podcasts, and join their communities and discussions to gain insights and tips. Finally, you can experiment and test new ideas and strategies, using tools like Google Optimize, Optimizely, or VWO to run A/B tests and measure and compare your outcomes. This will help you stay ahead of the curve and stay up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices.