If you are a business owner, you’ve likely been hearing how you should be thinking about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and PPC (Pay Per Click). Whether you’re a new business, have a new website, or have been running your company for decades, the best time to start is now. If you are new around here, let’s first talk about what SEO and PPC are and then dive into how your website can benefit you in these areas.
SEO vs. PPC: The Short Version
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, and it is the organic way your website is ranked in search engines like Google. The way you rank within search engines is not something you can pay for directly. Good SEO requires time and patience to get you to the top of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Through a combination of using on-page optimization, backlinking, blogging, and more, you can slowly start to bring your website ranking up.
With PPC, aka Pay Per Click, you are paying for advertisements on Google, and it allows your site to become visible even if your organic ranking isn’t as high yet. Google will show four ads on the first page of results before the organic results and three more ads at the bottom after organic results. Pay per click actually means you are paying each time someone clicks on your advertisement.
How Do SEO and PPC Work Together?
While SEO and PPC might appear as two different strategies, they can be thought of as two sides to the same coin: search. SEO and PPC both compliment each other and lead to a more successful search strategy.
Build a Website for SEO
SEO is becoming more and more necessary in this age of technology that we live in. As a business, your website should be SEO-friendly to ensure you are keeping up with the rest of the world. When beginning to build a new website, it is crucial to keep SEO in mind along the way; otherwise, you will end up doing more work in the future to make your website SEO-friendly. If you are a business and currently have a website that was not built with SEO in mind, there are plenty of ways you can get your website up to par.
Keywords
Keywords are the number one factor used when determining SEO for a website. Keywords help search engines learn what message you are trying to convey and who to show it to. Keyword research is a crucial step when planning your website content and will help you figure out how to be most relevant to your audience. Be careful not to overuse your keywords, though; search engines don’t like that.
Make Your Content Relevant
A website’s content is the 2nd most important aspect of SEO. Content includes the words used on a webpage, pictures, sound bites, video clips, etc. The content you have on your website will either make a user want to stay and keep reading or leave that page and possibly the website altogether. Within the text portion of your content, you should be including the relevant keywords you researched. Make sure your content is interesting and engaging as well. The idea here is to keep a visitor on each website page as long as possible.
Page Layout and Formatting
The layout of each website page is fundamental. Layout is considered to be things like the size of text, links, where you place content, photos, etc. Use an average size font and consider the color of the text and background it is on when designing each page. You don’t want to make it difficult to look at for site visitors. You should also avoid putting text in images because the search engines cannot read it and keep large images to a minimum because it can slow down your page loading time.
Site Structure, Navigation, and User Experience
The site structure goes beyond each page’s layout and formatting and involves the website’s overall layout, including buttons, links, and the menu. The site structure can play into how easily a user can navigate the website, therefore affecting the amount of time spent on it. If it is difficult to find a specific page or feature, a user is likely to get frustrated and give up before there is a chance to convert them into a customer. This has a negative impact on SEO, so the more natural your website is to navigate, the better.
Create a Call to Action
The more website visitors you convert, the better your SEO ranking will be. The conversion rate is the rate at which site visitors convert to a customer or take some sort of action on your page. Adding a call to action increases the likelihood of a conversion. Tell them to give you a call, make a purchase, sign up for a newsletter, or schedule an appointment. Whatever it is you’d like them to do, you have to ask first!
Build a Website for PPC
Even though with PPC advertising, you are paying money to get your ads in front of users, your website still must be able to convert visitors. If your site is easy to navigate, has a fast loading time, pages with relevant content, and so on, you should see a reasonable conversion rate. Without these fundamental things in place, you will likely be seeing fewer conversions and end up paying more per click.
Page Speed
Think back to the last time you visited a website only to feel like you waited an eternity for the page to load. It is a frustrating experience and usually results in the user leaving the website. A fast page load time might be quicker than you think. Google recommends that a page load in under 2 seconds, and even less is better. Some users will exit if a site takes 3-4 seconds or longer to load. It might not seem like a big difference, but internet users have become a lot less patient since the days of dial-up.
Responsiveness
Not only do users want website pages to load fast, they also want them to load properly on a mobile device, tablet, and any sized window. To make this a reality, your website needs to be responsive. The standard used to be simply having a mobile-friendly website, but now it is important to have dynamic content that makes your website fully responsive. This means that images and content blocks can reposition themselves on a page based on the screen size or orientation in which they are being viewed. Without a responsive design, users might not be able to see your website how it was intended, creating little to no chance of a conversion.
Address Technical Errors
Be certain that all aspects of the website are functional in any type of browser. If there is a link or form that doesn’t work, address it immediately. It also is beneficial to test every function of every page in all available internet browsers. Just because your website works fine in Google Chrome doesn’t mean it will function and look the same in Safari or Internet Explorer (yes, some people still use IE). If important aspects of your site are broken, it’s not likely your visitor will turn into a customer.
Aesthetics
Aesthetics are referring to the overall impression of your website. Websites that look dated or cheaply made don’t give off the impression that you deserve the sale. Just as you would want to make a good impression when meeting a potential customer face-to-face, you also want to make a good impression when someone visits your website for the first time. Giving off a bad first impression can be difficult to overcome, even over the internet. Ensure that your website looks professional and appealing to visitors. These days, people can tell if a business didn’t put much effort into their website.
Are SEO and PPC Worth It?
You might be wondering whether or not paying for an SEO and PPC friendly website and then also paying for PPC advertising is worth the money. Let’s look at a hypothetical scenario:
Say there is a company that currently gets 2,000 website visitors, and that equates to 40 leads on average. That is a 2% conversion rate. If their site load time is above 6 seconds and their bounce rate is currently 40%, that means 800 out of 2000 visitors leave the site from the home page, or “exit” before looking at more content or taking an action.
Let’s say their cost per click is $2 for what they sell, and they get an average 50% close rate and make $500 per customer. That would mean they currently average $10,000 per month in sales. If they double their traffic with PPC to 4000 visitors, that would cost $4000 per month. That is $48,000 a year in ads for them to make an extra $120,000 a year and potentially “double their sales.”
However, if we improve their conversion rate from 2% to 4% by getting a new website, then they can convert more of their existing traffic AND their paid traffic. This would take the monthly lead volume from 80 to 160. 80 Jobs = $40,000/Month.
In short: Running PPC ads would cost $48,000 to make $240,000 a year.
Running PPC ads plus building a new website would cost $73,000 but make $480,000 a year.
That is the REAL value of a GREAT website.
Ready to Get Started?
If you are ready to get a website that makes your money, reach out to The Evoke Group team today. We are experts in building PPC and SEO friendly websites, running PPC campaigns, and getting your website to rank higher organically.