How to Balance Your Budget with SEO and PPC
But how do you balance a marketing budget that’s split between two powerful strategies?
The solution lies in the strengths and weaknesses of both strategies. While they can do a lot of the same things, they also each have unique benefits, and it’s critical that you know what they are and how to use them.
And, more importantly, you have to know when to use them. In general, PPC is better at achieving short-term goals, and SEO is better at achieving long-term goals.
Call 888-601-5359 to speak with a strategist about digital marketing services from WebFX, or keep reading to learn more about how you can use both SEO and PPC to reach your marketing goals.
Short-term strategies: More PPC
Financial split: 60% – 75% PPC, 25% – 40% SEO
When you’re just starting your Internet marketing strategy, your website is a blank slate. It doesn’t have anything holding it back, but it doesn’t have anything working to its advantage either.
PPC
That’s why it’s critical to use PPC in the early stages of your website’s life. PPC lets you pay to display in the search results for certain keywords that are important to your industry. So instead of relying on the strength of your website to bring traffic, you can rely on your marketing budget instead.
Basically, this is the time you want to flood your PPC campaigns with funds to make sure you’re getting the traffic that you want. If you can’t afford to keep your PPC campaign active at all times, find and designate the key hours of the day when you get the best traffic. Then, scale your PPC back and only appear during those hours.
This bare-bones approach to PPC may not provide as much traffic or cost as much money, but it’s a strong first step for your campaigns. As you grow, you can add more money to your PPC budget, and that’ll continue to return a high ROI.
Learn more about budgeting for PPC in the video below.
SEO
As your PPC is bringing in new traffic, you should be working on the beginnings of your SEO strategy. That includes creating ideas for content, creating that content, and publishing it on your website. It also includes learning link building techniques, so you can start to earn credibility in your industry.
The content you create will show visitors to your site that you’re a reliable authority in your industry. It’ll also show Google that you’re an active online presence, so they can recommend you in relevant searches.
The links you acquire at this stage of your strategy form the backbone of your search engine credibility. Every link you get is a vote of confidence that tells Google and other search engines that you’re a source of quality, interesting content. And when you get those links from other reputable sources, your SEO strategy will thrive.
Long-term strategies: More SEO
Financial split: 25% – 40% PPC, 60% – 75% SEO
As you acquire better search engine rankings from SEO, you can rely on PPC less and less. So instead of paying for the traffic that you get to your website, you now get it for free from your reputation with search engine users and search engines themselves.
PPC
In this phase, you can scale back on your PPC efforts and only target the highly-competitive keywords in your industry. That will help you save some money while you still enjoy the same (or greater) traffic levels as before.
In addition, you can now use your PPC campaigns to target potential keywords for online expansion. So if there were keywords that you wanted to target earlier, but you didn’t have the budget, you can start doing it now. This is a great way to spearhead initiatives into new search engine territory, getting you more traffic from different sources to help your business get even stronger.
SEO
By this point, your website should be strong enough to stand on its own two feet. It should have links from other websites, and it should rank well in search engines for keywords and search terms that attract customers. However, you should constantly work to maintain and improve those rankings by taking your SEO strategy to the next level.
With a strong foundation of high-ranking content, you can now expand your SEO reach by repeating the process from earlier. Create new ideas, turn them into content, and publish them on your site. As you continue to repeat this process, you’ll create even more opportunities for your site to display in search engine results.
The key to successful SEO is to continue producing fresh, new content and obtaining links to it from other sources. That way, search engines can see you’re active, users get something valuable from your creations, and your company can continue to grow.
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WebFX knows SEO and PPC
At WebFX, we’re constantly learning about the latest updates and trends in SEO and PPC. Our team of experienced specialists is constantly on the move to make sure that we can earn the best ROI possible for our clients — and we want to do the same for you!
With an extensive portfolio and client testimonials to back us up, we’re confident that we’ll meet your expectations and deliver the superior results you need to grow your business online. Contact us today to lay out the SEO and PPC plans that’ll make it happen!