Why PPC and SEO Campaigns Should Be Run Simultaneously

It is common to come across a debate regarding which is better – PPC or SEO. In reality, you can do with bringing both of them into your marketing strategy.

But the question is still there – which one should you prioritise? For some businesses, it is a case of bringing an SEO marketing strategy underway, wait some time until it starts generating traffic and then move on to PPC. For other companies, it is the other way around.

Both PPC and SEO have the potential to generate Internet traffic in generous volumes. Nonetheless, anyone trying to maximise their ROI may want to consider running both SEO and PPC campaigns at the same time.

Here is why:

SEO Will Take Time

For starters, even an outstanding SEO strategy takes time to reach fruition. What is more, it’s fundamentally impossible to predict how much time it will take for an SEO strategy to reach a certain result. It will simply take as long as it takes. Meanwhile, there might be a little to no difference when it comes to the traffic your website is able to pull in.

By contrast, PPC is about immediate impact when you happen to need it most. Rather than sitting and waiting to see what happens, your PPC ads will be published both instantly and prominently. While your SEO marketing strategy is working hard to get the job done, your PPC ads deliver a steady and strong stream of traffic.

Paid Ads Will Appear More Prominently

No matter how great your SEO strategy is, you will always play second fiddle to the paid ads. In fact, you are unlikely to reach the top of the search rankings for the most popular keywords. It is important to bear in mind that above all else, Google is out there to make money – that’s a fact. This is precisely why Google gives those businesses who hand over cash priority in the search result listings.

With a PPC marketing campaign, you have the chance to position your ads at the very top of the search results page. If the best you are managing so far with your SEO campaign is tenth position, you may find PPC ads very useful for boosting the traffic to your page. That is also something that can help your SEO marketing strategy – Google considers page hits and visitor numbers into its indexation algorithms. So again, a combination of PPC and SEO wins the day.

Lessons Learned

Lastly, PPC campaigns could be used to learn important lessons for your SEO strategy, and vice versa. By monitoring their respective progress, you will tap into a world of invaluable data for the improvement of both campaigns.

Especially when it comes to keywords data and analytics, a PPC campaign could be worth its weight in gold. Google usually reserves the most valuable insights and data for those businesses willing to pay for it. Therefore, your PPC ads can teach you more about your business audience than your SEO strategy alone.

Summer 2019 - Online Marketing Statistics

The 2019 summer is already proving to be a fascinating period in the world of web marketing statistics. Or at least, fascinating if you are keeping up with the major topics like artificial intelligence, influencer marketing and the power of online video.

So here is a short summary of just a few revealing statistics from the past weeks that attracted our attention.

AI marketing is set to explode by 2022

A recent study by Forbes Insights and Quantcast suggests that online markets worldwide are planning significant investments in AI over the next few years. More specifically, around 535 of web marketers have the intention to spend more on AI in the next 4 years, while 17% intend to invest heavily in AI. More than half of those studied declared they had personally observed improvements to customer retention since introducing AI. Particularly when it comes to customer service, AI is dramatically transforming the way businesses improve their online user experience.

More children than ever before want to be influencers
The social media influencer as an idea didn’t even exist a few years ago. Nowadays, a study by Awin suggests that nearly 70% of children between 11 and 16 have aspirations to become social media influencers. Additionally, 155 of children have the intention to build careers on YouTube. Both of these numbers are higher than the number of children who want to become vets or teachers. But while children are dreaming of becoming the next huge social media success, nearly half of the parents involved in the survey had no idea what a social media influencer is all about or how it works.

Blue Monday appears to drive strong online retail sales

Online retailers seem to have taken full advantage of the most depressing day of the year – January 21. Turning to online shopping as a distraction from the gloom elsewhere, EmpathyBroker reported a noticeable increase in shopping-based online searched compared to a typical Monday. This amounted to around 30% heavier shopping traffic than the typical for a less-depressing Monday at any other time.

YouTube’s revenues from ads are still on the up

As every year, YouTube has once again achieved some impressive revenue growth – an 11% increase in 2018 compared to the previous year. Media and entertainment brands contributed in excess of 30% to YouTube’s advertising revenues.

Video reviews are preferred to textual write-ups

Lastly, a recent study by Small Business Trends confirmed the potential influence and value of quality video marketing. In this case, the study revealed that nearly four times more people prefer watching a video review of a product that simply reading about it. Along with the simplicity to deal with compared to block after block of text, a video review can help build a deeper connection with the viewer and can deliver much more detailed visual product information.