Aloha, Nick Ponte here. I’m a digital marketer in Maui, Hawaii, and I own an advertising agency here serving local businesses. We’ve been talking lately about how to improve and optimize local businesses’ websites. This week, I wanted to address a common question that owners have about how to approach their marketing strategy.
You may have heard rumors that SEO is better than PPC, or vice versa. Some businesses tend to focus on one, giving more resources and energy in a certain direction—at the expense of the other. If that’s how you run your web advertising strategy, I have to tell you that you may be able to get a lot more leads by blending the two strategies! In fact, we’ve helped several Maui businesses out of a tight bind when they’d focused more on one of these, and they had missed out on leads.
Let me share with you why a healthy combination of both PPC and SEO are crucial to getting organic traffic, higher rankings, and brand recognition… among other important benefits.
Also Read: How Local Maui Business Owners Can Invest in SEO Strategies… and Get the Best Results
Integrating SEO and PPC for the Most Effective Results
Both SEO and PPC represent essential pieces in a digital marketing strategy. They have different targets, but it’s kind of two sides of the same coin.
SEO lets you generate free traffic for very little cost (other than the hours that go into planning SEO). It takes time to see results and build credibility, but it sets a strong foundation. It’s a cost-effective form of marketing that gives a great return on investment. The results stand for a longer time, helping us even when our budgets shrink. Once you’re established, competitors can’t simply buy a higher rank out from under you.
This contrasts with PPC, in which every click comes out of your budget. Users often skip over paid ads at the top of SERPs, and they trust organic search results. A higher percentage of users click through on organic search results. Organic results are often more credible than paid ads.
However, with PPC, you can target keywords, audience, time periods, amid other factors. You show up first on a SERP. Even if a user scrolls past ads, you still get the visibility. You can set fixed limits based on your budget. You see quick results.
Ultimately, you need both to run a successful marketing plan. With both, you’ll have an advantage on competitors who rely on only one type. Instead of thinking about it like a choice between the two, understand that both support the other for an ultimately stronger campaign.
When you successfully set both plans in motion, you’ll have traffic coming in from all directions.
Also Read: Organic SEO Methodology
How to Use SEO and PPC Together
For a robust strategy incorporating both SEO and PPC…
- Focus on SEO first.
You want to build SEO into the foundation and structure of your website. Your domain and hosting service should have reliability. Set up your site structure, so users can navigate it without confusion.
Hire a Maui advertising agency to help you establish a plan for success and handle the important details. They can take some grunt work off your plate and ensure your website has the strong foundation it needs to gain the high rankings on SERPs.
- Build a clean website with a clear funnel leading to your products or services.
As you put your website together, prioritize making it easy to navigate, so users can quickly find answers to their questions. Every page and point should align with your branding and purpose. Add a consistent navigation bar to every page, and include a site map for ease of use and to improve indexing.
Don’t forget to include clear CTAs on every page. These help potential customers know the next steps to take in their purchasing journey. You can use different CTAs depending on the page and target buyers according to their position in that journey.
- Run Search Engine Marketing (SEM) campaigns leading to that amazing new website.
Set up some PPC ads on Google targeting appropriate keywords. Link to a landing page specific to those ads. It will answer shoppers’ immediate questions about your products and help you keep track of the ad analytics.
- Run targeted social media ads.
To broaden your reach, run an ad campaign on Facebook, Instagram, or both. Choose according to where your target demographic tends to hang out. You can also set these up as PPC ads, and link to a specific landing page.
It will take time to implement all of these elements into your strategy, so don’t expect to see immediate results. Stay in the game and keep working! It often takes several months for an SEO strategy to pay off through consistent web traffic. Though PPC can give you faster results, it typically works best when paired with a solid foundation of SEO.
Some business owners find important strategies like link building a challenge, and getting expert support can make a huge difference. Our Maui advertising agency can handle the details of SEO and PPC ad campaigns for you. Our strategies show proven results.
If you want to learn more or want help, reach out to us today!
Further Reading: 3 Steps For Maui Small Businesses to Use Ad Tracking and See Goal-Driven Results
Photos Courtesy of Jeremy Bishop, guille pozzi, & Mohit Kumar