Welcome back to our second in a series of blog posts on the presentations at our recent Digital Marketing Forum!
Our second presentation of the day, led by Tim Rohlwing, Sales Executive & Digital Strategist and Courtney Bessert, Director of SEO/SEM, was on the topic of SEO and PPC.
Starting Points
When you’re looking at your SEO / SEM plans, start by answering the following questions.
- What are your goals?
- What are the KPI’s?
- Who is driving the initiative?
- Responsibilities are with what team?
It is important you have organizational alignment – make sure you know who is taking ownership of your SEO / SEM campaign.
Launching a New Campaign
Similar questions apply when launching a new campaign.
- Is this a NEW site or re-design of an existing site?
- Discuss key factors (technical, business related, financial)
- Continually provide data (volume, conversions, sales, etc.)
- Communicate results
- Align web metrics with business objectives
What Works the Best?
SEO and SEM are both foundational pieces in a digital marketing strategy. Digital Marketing tactics to consider include:
- SEO
- SEM / Pay Per Click
- Email Marketing
- Social Media Marketing
- Content Marketing / Blogging
- Online Reviews
- And more!
SEO and PPC are Foundational
SEO and Paid Search are both useful in generating traffic to the website at various stages and oftentimes used simultaneously. Here’s how they differ:
SEO: SEO is more about gaining traffic over time. Its earned traffic, it’s your free listings and it has more long-term value.
Paid Search: Paid Search can provide you with immediate traffic. If you’re not performing well right away, are not quite there yet in terms of your keyword rankings, have just launched a new campaign and really need to get traffic to your sight right away, that’s when you might want to consider paid search. This might be a temporary solution at first, and then you might decide whether to keep that going depending on how well it works for you.
Here are some of the components involved in SEO and Paid Search campaigns.
SEO:
- Organic Search Listings
- Google Map Listings
- Directory Listings
- On Page Technical Factors
- Incoming Links
- Website Content
- Content Marketing
- Social Media
Paid Search:
- Google Search Ads
- Google Shopping Ads
- Display Ads
- Remarketing Ads
- Social Media Ads
- YouTube/Preroll Ads
Search Engine Results Page
The search engine results page looks different depending on the type of search or search query. It is important to understand the different areas that make up the search engine results page in order to determine where it’s important to rank.
Featured Snippets
Featured snippets or knowledge graph answers are increasingly present in the search results. These rank above the organic results and are referred to as “position zero.” This position is highly coveted as it greatly increases the click-through rate to the website.
Measure Effectiveness
No matter what SEO and paid search tactics you’re using, be sure to measure your effectiveness using a tool such as Google Analytics.
Measure Success (ROI):
- Traffic (Organic vs. Paid)
- Rankings (all types)
- Conversions
- Click Through Rate (CTR)
- Brand Mentions
- Local Listings Visibility
- Keywords
- Link profile
- Time on Site
- Page Views
- Bounce Rate
Takeaway
This is just a brief introduction to the world of SEO and paid search. There are 200+ ranking factors in Google’s algorithm, so there is a lot to consider when working on your SEO. There are also numerous paid search options out there. Using multiple efforts and channels, it is possible to impact your visibility on search engine results pages – for B2B and B2C businesses, small local companies and larger companies.
Overwhelmed by tackling your SEO or paid search? Contact Americaneagle.com and we would be happy to conduct an SEO or paid search audit on your site, create an SEO or paid search strategy and help you work towards greater online visibility.
