“Should we focus on SEO or SEA?” is a very frequent question when it comes time to implement or rethink the growth strategy of your website, especially e-tailers. In reality, why oppose them when these two acquisition levers are above all complementary? Each has its pros and cons:
- The SEO, that is, the work on so-called “natural” SEO, attracts qualified traffic throughout the year and does not depend on advertising budgets. On the other hand, it remains dependent on updates from Google in particular and represents a set of long-term efforts.
- The SEA (Search Engine Advertising, or “paid” referencing) makes it possible to immediately obtain traffic and to be immediately visible to Internet users at the top of the results pages, without having to wait for weeks to obtain a few strategic organic positions. Its advanced targeting possibilities are a real plus, but SEA has the limitations of representing heavy investments over time, also subject to a competing click race that tends to increase the value of the CPC in many sectors.
Cumulative, SEO and SEA represent more than half of the traffic of most websites today. In other words, it would be a shame not to combine them to benefit from their respective advantages while reducing the risk and/or budget peaks involved by each of them! Combining them intelligently allowsimprove the ROI of marketing efforts and to pool part of value creation (customer journey, optimization of Landing pages, common organization of all or part of semantic searches, etc.). With, of course, the key is a strategic increase in conversion... Here are several ways to combine them to be profitable and avoid deploying them completely separately (let's leave the silos to other types of thinking!).
1) Sharing semantic analysis by testing SEO keywords via SEA ads
Investing in sponsored ads and links, whether they are Google ads, Bing Ads or ads on social networks, allows you to effectively test its Keywords and to see which ones may need to be prioritized in the efforts of seo.These campaigns will make it possible to eliminate keywords with too much competition or low added value. However, be careful with do not make decisions by looking only at the cost or ROI of the keyword or group of keywords : as we will see in the next part, a poor return on investment is also often the result of a poor conversion in terms of the title or the landing page... but these points can be deeply improved!
2) A/B test your ads to improve landing pages and titles common between SEO and SEA
It is very important not to miss thestage of analyzing and testing the conversion at the level of the ad and the landing page itself, so as not to miss a keyword that was just waiting to be converted... a good Message match is essential, among other optimization operations. Optimizing the budget is one thing, in-depth research on the mentality of the prospect and the right copywriting to respond to them are just as important! Again, real joint work is made possible beforehand: think in particular of Test titles and messages, which can then be included on the pages to rank them... and convert. In summary, paying for sponsored links allows (also) to:
- Test titles until you find the most effective
- Improve the effectiveness of landing pages that will also be organic landing pages
3) Compensate for a lack of strong organic positions via sponsored ads
Organic SEO takes time. Even positions on page 1 will not always be enough to be profitable or to make your brand known over the long term, and these are far from being acquired. Until reaching the top of the organic results, or for complete this presence by occupying a premium space well at the top of the SERPs, invest in sponsored links allows you to be visible as you want... and when you want it.Big names in e-commerce and online sales also tend to continue to invest in both the SEO and SEA fields, even when their organic positions are already excellent. This is for example the case of Booking.com or Agoda in the travel sector, which is particularly competitive. This choice is easy to understand: In many areas, being organically positioned in 1st position will... bring almost nothing. The space above the waterline is already saturated by ads, Google Shopping, a possible Pack Local... among other elements that will prevent the user from reaching the landing page. The more ads there are, the fewer the natural results are seen and viewed.Aim a double or even a triple occupancy of this page via an ad, a featured product and a good organic presence is therefore often necessary.
4) Improve the Quality Score
At the Google Ads level, the auction is not enough to determine the position of an ad compared to its competitors. Google also uses what is called the Quality Score, which is the quality level of advertising. Depending on its assessed relevance, the ad gets a “bonus” or “malus” in terms of positioning! However, a well-thought-out SEO architecture and landing pages whose content is perfectly optimized for the keywords and the user intent attached to them go. Come and “boost” the relevance of the page.In other words, SEO helps to obtain a better Quality Score, and therefore to increase the visibility and ROI of SEA ads!
5) Optimize the customer journey
We know it: today's customer journey is complex, multi-device and involves numerous contact points. Between his searches for products or solutions to a problem, his organic searches, his reading on social networks or his clicks on relevant sponsored links, it is necessary to engage it at all potential levels of discovery, intelligence and contact.In this context, SEA and SEO have a lot to play together to optimize the entire customer journey. For example, a prospect who browses several pages on your site (found directly or indirectly through your efforts to organic referencing) will have every interest in doing theObject of a Retargeting ultra-personalized made possible precisely by advertising solutions (such as Google Ads remarketing lists)! Automating and customizing messages delivered instantly, organically and in a sponsored manner will significantly improve the quality of the customer journey, according to his profile, his behavior... and of course the expected results.
A winning alliance for your SEM strategy?
Les synergies offered by SEO and SEA are particularly effective in the context of a SEM strategy (Search Engine Marketing) Global. We will of course add a social media optimization component (SMO) to refine the customer journey as much as possible and boost sales while maintaining its e-reputation and the visibility of its brand on the Web.
