One of the foundational pillars of online marketing is to expand your brand’s visibility and maximize your messages across cyberspace. Effective online marketing campaigns will not just get more people to know your brand but they will also engage the audiences, making them much more likely to resonate with your brand’s values and buy your products.
To maximize your visibility across platforms, ranking is an important index. Higher search engine ranking means that your branded content is much likelier to show up when people search for specific keywords online. In online marketing, marketers would pay extra attention to two types of ranking: SEO and PPC. How is ranking different when comparing PPC vs SEO? The answer we provide below might change your entire online marketing strategy.
PPC Ranking
PPC, stands for pay-per-click, is a form of advertisement on search engines, particularly Google. In this model, businesses would bid for certain keywords that are relevant to their niches, and Google would put their listings above the organic listings when users prompt a search query using one of those keywords. Businesses will only be charged if the users click on the listings, so it is crucial to create engaging content that drives people to click on your listings.
In reality, PPC ranking is a lot more complex than just paying search engines a fortune to rank highly. There are several factors that come into play when you wish to stay on top of the PPC ranking.
- Bid Amount: Google will prioritize your maximum bid amount first and foremost. This is the maximum amount of money you are willing to pay per click. The higher the amount, the higher your PPC ranking will be.
- Quality Score: Quality Score is Google’s primary diagnostic tool to determine how good your ad quality is compared to other bidders. While “good” is a rather non-specific and subjective term, Google actually has a consistent scoring system that takes into account your ad relevance and the landing page experience to calculate the score. Even if you are the highest bidder for certain keywords, if your ad content’s Quality Score is low, there is a chance you will not win certain bids.
- Ad Relevance: Ad relevance plays a very important role in your PPC ranking, as it directly affects your Quality Score. Keep your ad copies relevant to the keywords as well as your niches to maximize this factor.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): Google will also take into account your past performance on its advertising platform. If you manage to keep a consistently high CTR, your ad copies are more likely to win bids with ease.
SEO Ranking
Contrary to PPC ranking, SEO ranking does not require you to pay. It relies solely on the quality of your content as well as how you optimize it on your website. SEO ranking is an essential part of every online marketing strategy, as it does not cost you a fortune. Even though SEO content will show up below PPC ad content on the SERP, it is still impactful enough to require a lot of care and attention.
How does paid search compare to search engine optimization? Both are important aspects of online marketing, but SEO is a long-term strategy that offers huge payoffs.
As with PPC ranking, you can improve your SEO ranking by manipulating various factors.
- Content Quality and Relevancy: As there is no monetary factor in play, your content’s quality and relevancy will be the key factor determining your SEO ranking. Your content must provide great information to readers, and it must be relevant to the subject matter related to the keywords.
- Backlinks and Domain Authority: Google will also take into account the links that other websites put out that redirect their users to your website, but that does not mean the more links there are, the better. Each domain comes with a different domain authority score, which essentially grades how trustworthy a source is when it comes to the subject matter. If you are buying backlinks just to improve your SEO, you might even be penalized, which causes massive damage to your SEO strategy.
- On-Page Optimization: Content pieces that look clean and easy to parse will earn you bonus scores with Google. Add headers, anchors, and external links to help your readers find the exact content they need with ease.
- User Experience and Engagement Metrics: Engaged readers are much more likely to be converted into purchasing customers, so engagement metrics are also impactful. The longer users stay on your content pieces, the better Google will reward you. Having a page with a streamlined user experience also greatly helps.
Contrasting SEO and PPC ranking
A common question that business owners pose is between PPC or SEO is better. The answer is that your brand will perform much better if you have a high ranking in both. That said, there are some distinct differences between them.
Cost Effectiveness
In terms of cost-effectiveness, SEO ranking is the clear winner here, as you will not have to consistently outbid your competitors. In the long run, a PPC campaign can be quite costly.
Time Frame for Results
SEO strategies focus on long-term results, which means that you will not see tangible results for at least months after content creation. In contrast, a high PPC ranking will almost immediately boost your online marketing performance, so long as you are willing to keep outbidding competitors.
Control over Placement and Visibility
While PPC ad campaigns offer a vast variety of ad placements, you won’t have total control regarding where your ads will show up. Meanwhile. you have complete control over your SEO content placement and visibility.
Impact on Branding and Perception
SEO will have a positive impact on your branding, as your target audience will associate your brand with certain niches. Meanwhile, PPC improves your brand visibility through its smart targeting.
Relationship with Search Engines
Improving your branding and visibility through search engines is how PPC and SEO work together. Both strategies are integral parts of any search engine. Google does offer some degree of personalized support for PPC, however.
Tech-One Digital Agency: Leveraging Both Strategies
Tech-One Digital Agency, Ho Chi Minh’s leading digital marketing agency understands how paid search and SEO work together, and that is why we are leveraging both strategies to boost your brand’s visibility and recognition to the next level.
Customized Approach for Clients
We understand that all of our clients are different, and that means a customized approach for each client is the way to move forward. All of our online marketing strategies take your niche into account to create campaigns that actually touch and engage your audience.
Utilizing PPC for Immediate Results and Targeted Campaigns
PPC is a great tool for immediate results and targeted campaigns. With a team of in-house PPC experts, we create the perfect persona that fits your target audience to the T, enabling us to refine our targeting and increase the reach of PPC ad copies.
Implementing SEO for Sustainable Growth and Long-Term Success
The key to long-term growth lies in high-quality content, and that is where our SEO strategy comes into play. Our SEO specialists will conduct keyword research as well as optimizations to ensure your brand grows sustainably through the years. How does SEO affect PPC? Great SEO strategies will help our PPC experts identify potential keywords even better, helping them optimize your ad budget.
Monitoring and Adjusting Strategies Based on Performance Metrics
Both SEO and PPC are constantly changing fields, and we strive to keep up the pace with major search engines. Our online marketing experts work around the clock to monitor both PPC and SEO strategies and make adjustments when necessary. We work with a wide range of performance metrics to ensure that the end result will bring you nothing but satisfaction.
SEO ranking and PPC ranking are almost like two sides of the same coin. They both are helpful in boosting your brand’s identity and recognition, but they work differently. By combining the two in an integrated and comprehensive online marketing strategy, you will be able to outdo your competitors and become the industry leader in your own field.
Read more: How Do SEO and SEM Work Together
