Most businesses have placed SEO and SEA in separate teams, missing out on the possibilities if you were to combine the two. Of course, it’s not possible to smack massive amounts of money in SEO to increase your organic position, but combining the data from both teams will create some tremendous insights and probably save you resources!
But to use this ‘total search’ (Combining Paid and organic search) approach, you need to have the right people with the same “One team – mutual goal” mentality.
Both have the same goal.
The goal of Search engine optimisation and Google Ads is: ‘To be placed at the top of the search results, as most of you probably already know. But since they have the same goal, we can use them both to complement each other in reaching the overall plan, which is getting traffic to our webpage.
If we combine them both, the chances of being on top in the search results increases. In the next paragraph, we will show you some examples of this.
Combining data from both to paint a better view.
An easy way of using integrated data is to analyse query coverage. By comparing the two, it is clear that there are certain areas where paid search expansion or organic optimisation would be more beneficial.
You own a business that sells rings. The page with the keyword “Diamond Rings” ranks organically well in Google. The keyword “Rings” is doing alright organically since the competition is medium. Both words are being promoted through Google Ads, “Rings” is a very expensive keyword. While “Diamond Rings” is a keyword with few competitors and a low cost per click.
If both SEA and SEO specialists are not working together, they would probably look at their results and think both were doing an alright job. This is true, but we can optimise the outcome even more!
How so? Let us show you!
We can see from the example that “Rings” is doing alright organically, but in Google Ads is really expensive. So the best thing to do there is not advertising with that word in Google Ads since it ranks alright organically.
“Diamond ring” is already a bit more specific. Therefore, the cost of advertising on that keyword is lower since not many competitors promote it. Since it already ranks well organically, you should ask yourself: “Will you get significantly more traffic if I promote through this keyword, or should I spend that extra bit of money on a different word?”
Look for intent and Long-tail keywords.
When doing keyword research for SEA, try to do that together with SEO. This can be done with a tool like SemRush. You can check organic statistics, paid statistics, and keyword intent with this tool!
Some conclusions you might see by using this data are:
- Long-tail keywords have the most intent, generally won’t cost that much money, and most likely more conversions.
- Some words are better for organic search, and some are better for paid search.
Sometimes a word is perfect for organic search, but the intention is too broad. And it can be smarter to use a long-tail version of it.
Using an agency
If you work together with an agency, it is vital to give them access to both SEA and SEO to apply the total search approach. Like we said, combining those will provide you with a holistic view of an agency that is very important. Since they work with the budget you have assigned them, they try to make a most effective strategy.
Without the critical insights from SEO and SEA, they can only see half of the picture. At the same time, if they had the complete data view, they could optimise, fill gaps in the keyword coverage and save valuable resources like time and money, which they can spend on optimising your SEA and SEO even more!
Our vision
It is essential to do the proper keyword research. But to do so, you need to see SEA and SEO as one; only then can you conduct effective research and use the Total Search approach. Therefore, when working together with a marketing agency, it’s advisable to work on SEO and SEA.
This way an agency can research which words rank well, are better for SEA and have a good keyword coverage without wasting resources.
At CroudX, we have been using this technique for a while now, and we see great results! Clients have better keyword coverage and more traffic than before. Also, since we have the full view of SEO and SEA, we save a lot of time and money, which we can use to optimise the keyword landscape even more.
Till next time!
Check out our previous blog!
