As a savvy business owner, you understand the need for a digital roadmap to get noticed online and win new customers. But the question is, how do you hit your growth goals and build a strong online presence? The answer lies in a pair of complementary brand development strategies: search engine optimization (SEO) and paid media.
On their own, a paid media plan and SEO strategy can move you closer to your objectives. But together, these brand development strategies are far more impactful than you may think.
What Is Brand Management?
Brand management involves the use of various digital marketing techniques to enhance the ways in which consumers view and value your company and its offerings. Effective brand management promotes customer loyalty and increases your ability to generate healthy margins on the goods or services you provide.
In simpler terms, if consumers view your brand as reputable and perceive your products to be of good quality, they are willing to pay more and are also likely to choose them over your competitor’s offerings. With that in mind, let’s shift our attention to how SEO and paid media fit into the brand management equation.
What Is Search Engine Optimization?
Search engine optimization refers to a series of best practices designed to make your website and content more appealing to search engines like Google or Bing. According to LinkedIn, only 6.6% of users make it past the first search engine results page (SERP), which means you need to rank high if you want to generate meaningful traffic.
Most people equate SEO to using the right keywords. And though that is a large part of the equation, you also need to structure your content in an organized way, produce quality copy, use images, and ensure your website performs optimally.
By applying these proven SEO strategies, you can increase your organic (unpaid) site traffic and the top listing on SERPs. Forbes reports that over 45% of all internet clicks in 2022 were organic.
Benefits and Drawbacks of SEO Strategies
First and foremost, brands favor strong SEO strategies because they are:
- Cost-effective
- Capable of providing long-term results
- Capable of raising brand awareness
- Good at offering compounding returns
However, SEO is not without its potential drawbacks, which involve the following:
- Building a high ranking can take months
- Constantly updating your content
- No guarantees
With regard to that last point, no matter how good your content is or how closely you follow SEO best practices, there are no guarantees that you’ll succeed. Remember, most of the brands you are competing against are following the same set of practices, which means that SERPs can be extremely competitive. Diligence is key, as building a strong organic ranking takes time.
What Is Paid Media?
Paid media refers to any paid digital advertising that you engage in to build your brand awareness, nurture leads, or acquire customers. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is one of the most well-known forms of paid media. It involves paying a fee every time someone clicks on one of your ads.
Nevertheless, there are many other types of paid media, including paid social ads and banner ads. We will primarily focus on PPC and social ads, as they are some of the most effective tools for building your brand.
According to Semrush, Facebook has a potential ad reach of over 188 million. And Instagram and TikTok each have a potential reach of more than 150 million. While these figures are impressive, they pale in comparison to Google. The search engine titan processes roughly 99,000 queries every second, a number that translates to a staggering 8.5 billion searches each day.
Benefits and Drawbacks of Paid Marketing Strategies
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to build a strong organic presence, but you can’t sleep on the power of paid marketing. PPC advertising, for instance, offers instant visibility on Google, allowing you to promote your products and other offerings from day one. As long as you are willing to bid high enough, you can outperform established brands in paid search and generate instant buzz.
Other perks include things like :
- Precise targeting
- A wide reach
- Measurable results
However, there are reasons why every business isn’t using paid marketing as their sole tool for growth. For starters, it’s expensive. While paying a few dollars per click might not sound like much, all of those small transactions can quickly eat away at your advertising budget.
Other concerns arise from knowing the following:
- Clicks aren’t conversions
- Impacts are short-term
- The learning curve can be steep
Still, you shouldn’t let these concerns discourage you from approaching paid marketing. Instead, take them as indicators that you need both SEO and paid media to build a sustainable marketing strategy.
How Paid Marketing and SEO Strategies Complement Each Other
SEO is, for all intents and purposes, a long game. Over time, you can fill your website with high-quality, keyword-optimized content that slowly helps you climb the rankings. The long-term costs of SEO are typically much lower than running paid ads as well.
But you need sales now, and that’s where paid media enters the fold. Use paid ads to fill the gaps in your brand development strategies, garnering instant attention and driving sales while your SEO efforts take root. As your organic traffic increases, you can adjust your ad spend to better align with the current goals of the business.
7 Brand Development Strategies That Combine SEO and PPC
Below are seven specific tips you can use to help combine your SEO and paid media efforts:
Try New Keywords
Both PPC advertising and SEO require keyword research. And using the same terms in both campaigns provides consistency, allowing you to drive traffic to your organic content while also generating immediate results.
Targeting the same phrases in both campaigns also makes it easier for you from a content creation perspective. Your team will be able to plan and develop digital assets, as their attention will be focused on fewer topics.
Look at the Big Picture
Both types of campaigns will provide you with ample data about your customers and their preferences. But don’t keep these data sets separate. Instead, cross-analyze them to obtain a glimpse of the big picture. Consider everything from the keywords that are performing best to the audience segments that seem to be taking the most interest in your brand.
Retarget
Getting someone to visit your website is a great first step. However, most people aren’t going to convert during their initial interaction with your brand. It’s here where retargeting visitors proves invaluable. Doing so with paid ads will keep your brand on their minds and encourage them to come back to make a purchase.
Stay Atop the SERPs
Remember that you never “arrive” when it comes to SEO. Just because you are at the top of the rankings today doesn’t mean you can take your foot off the gas. In fact, now’s the time to double down. Run paid ads for the keywords that you are organically ranking for so that your brand can dominate the PPC and SEO sections of SERPs.
Optimize Ad Spend
Over time, trends will emerge. For instance, you may notice that certain keywords or advertising mediums perform better than others. When that happens, restructure your marketing budget to align with customer preferences. For instance, if your PPC campaign becomes less effective but your social ads are crushing it, reroute more funds to platforms like Instagram or Facebook.
Don’t Forget Technical SEO
Technical SEO refers to all of the back-end aspects of your website that impact your ranking and the user experience. It includes things like page load speeds, responsiveness, and whether you use the appropriate meta tags. Both PPC and SEO ads are driving users to your website, which means ensuring your pages are technically sound is crucial.
Keep Up With Algorithm Changes
Google and other search engines frequently update their algorithms, which can impact your rankings. Fortunately, most of Google’s algorithm changes are minor, which means they should only cause minor fluctuations in your rankings. Nevertheless, you need to keep up with these modifications so you don’t fall behind on the SERPs.
Build Winning Brand Development Strategies With Paid Media and SEO
As you build out your brand development strategies, make sure to weave in SEO best practices, paid search campaigns, and other digital marketing concepts so that you can get noticed by the right audiences. If you aren’t sure where to begin, don’t hesitate to bring in an outside perspective to jumpstart your brand-building efforts. Before you know it, you’ll be atop the SERP pages and paid results sections.
