With the digital landscape ever changing it’s more important than ever to ensure that efforts across disciplines are integrated and streamlined.

This blog focuses on the integration between paid media and SEO. Touching on how they work together, which aspects are high priority focus, and why this has been a greater focus for Anvil Media recently.

While companies are adjusting to the great resignation and the challenges that come with it, they should also be focused on the Great Integration of SEO and Paid Media marketing.

How they work together

There are many ways these two areas can work together and be mutually beneficial to each other. Having a consistent message and strategy across both disciplines is important to help with brand recognition and recall.

Keyword strategies will directly impact the other due to organic ranking and the average cost of each in Google. Keeping in mind that some keywords will be unique to the two strategies, some may overlap. For overlapping keywords it is important to develop a strategy to ensure that the overlapping keywords are not competing or being detrimental to the overall performance of each.

High priority areas to focus on

There are two primary areas that overlap for paid and SEO efforts, keywords and landing pages.

Keywords

This is probably the biggest and most value driving aspect and can ensure you’re getting the most value on both sides. For example, there are likely keywords being utilized on the organic side that ranks high on the first page for in Google search results, and is also a being used on the Google ads side, but at a high cost-per-click (CPC). It would make sense to stop paying for that keyword in Google ads to capitalize on the fact that it is a high-ranking organic keyword (there are exceptions to every rule, but 90% of the time this strategy has proven to be the most successful).

It also makes sense to evaluate the competition of the keywords on both sides. This will help determine which keywords to use only organically, only for paid media, and for both. As an example, if there is a keyword that has high competition organically, but not on the paid side, that’s a keyword that makes sense to use both places. With this strategy, the keyword will perform well when utilized for paid media efforts showing higher on the page and above competition even if it’s lower in the results organically. This same strategy works for both sides and if there’s a keyword that seems in the middle for both areas, it may make sense to test it, and if it ends up being a higher cost keyword on the paid side, then remove it and use just organically.

The primary exception to this rule is branded keywords (again there are always exceptions to the rule, but 99% of the time this one is true). Branded terms typically rank high organically and have a fairly low competition, but if a competitor is bidding on a company’s brand terms for paid efforts they may show above the brand’s organic results. By bidding on branded keywords a business can ensure that their brand shows in a top spot on the page, above the competition the majority, if not all, of the time.

Landing pages

Landing pages and landing page testing can be a hugely valuable resource, but not all landing pages can be used for both efforts. There are elements that need to be included that are valuable for both, and some elements that are better utilized for one vs the other.  One tool that has proven very useful for both paid and organic is the idea of heat mapping. This shows how far people scroll on a page, where they click, and how they interacted with different parts of the page. This is helpful to see what may look clickable but is not, or what seems like a hot spot for clicks and may be something to exclude from a paid media page if it’s not a form field.

The landing pages for paid and organic may be different in the layout and elements of the page, but copy should be similar, just pared down. On a paid media page, best practice is to have a very basic page, with a form/very clear call to action, preferably above the fold. Paid media landing pages should also have shorter more concise text, with a strong message, for easier readability. Organic website pages will likely have a navigation bar on them, as well as much longer more informational text, along with the form and/or call to action button. Heatmapping of the organic page will help determine which elements are interacted with regularly but also may help decide which elements and copy to include on a paid media page.

Why this has been a primary focus for us

Over the last several months Anvil has been hyper focused on this strategy and ensuring that SEO and paid media are working together in the most optimal way for our clients. With the constant changes happening on in digital marketing and third-party data being sunset, etc. being focused on keywords, landing pages, and a strategy of integrating SEO and paid media is crucial.

Let Anvil help you with your SEO and paid media integration strategy, contact us today.