The goal of a pay-per-click advertising campaign is to attract qualified traffic to a website in an effort to have searchers convert on a desired action. That action could be a sale, filling out a lead form, requesting information and so forth. The goal of search engine optimization is the same, yet the pressure of justifying the cost of every click doesn’t exist.
So, in both the PPC and SEO worlds, the goals are the same. But why drive traffic, whether you pay for it or not, to a site that may not convert? You may only get one chance to impress a visitor so if your site is not conversion friendly, you may have wasted your one and only chance to get that visitor to convert. If the visitor came from PPC, you have wasted your money as well.
Quality scoring is not a bad thing
With the advent of Google’s Quality Score and Yahoo’s Quality Index, the search engines are actually forcing advertisers to manage PPC accounts with the right priorities. It is a win-win situation. Each search engine wants to be known as delivering the most relevant results and the best user experience, so why not force advertisers to deliver exactly that? Advertisers who deliver the most relevant ad text and landing page for the searched keyword will be rewarded with a better Quality Score/Index and a lower cost per click. Those who don’t deliver will pay – literally.
The takeaway is that websites need to have landing pages that are optimized for SEO and deliver the content relevant to the PPC keyword and ad text. Create landing pages with the best possible user experience – easy navigation and clear call to action, and then focus on driving traffic to the site, regardless of where it comes from.
Identify terms that prospects are searching for
Use web analytics to discover what terms people are searching for organically and through paid search and then enhance both efforts. Find long tail keywords and misspellings for PPC and find key terms that have high search activity and create new content pages. Find out how people are interacting with your website and improve their user experience.
Although the benefits of SEO are not realized for a few months, don’t get caught up in the rush to send PPC traffic to a site for instant gratification. You might be able to see some positive results, but think about how much more effectively and efficiently your budget would be spent after optimizing the site. You need teamwork and patience.
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