The simplest SEA strategy to help your SEO efforts
As always, straight to the point – here you will be able to find the simplest integration strategy that uses SEA (search engine ads) to assist you on your SEO (search engine optimization) strategy. All you need for this is a Search Console account, which every webmaster should have, and a Google Adwords account.
Don’t waste your time, here’s the SEA-SEO strategy in a paragraph: the strategy consists in monitoring your website’s organic searches and from there select the search terms with more potential and add them to your SEA campaign. This will allow you to evaluate these search terms, whether they convert, all the searches in a certain period and if it is worth adapting your website’s page to them. This will also allow the SEA campaign to assist you on organic keywords where you are not on the top positions and evaluate how it would be if you were.
” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” />HOW CAN YOU BENEFIT FROM THIS STRATEGY?
1. Know if a search term is worth adapting your webpage to
More than just traffic you want to know if a search term can convert. Especially when you have a certain article with a specific search term already bringing a lot of traffic to your website, it is important to test if adapting your article will allow a new search term to bring the same amount of traffic and if it will convert.
2. Know the exact number of organic searches for that search term
If you guarantee 100% impression share – or close to – you will find out the exact number of searches for that search term, during your campaign’s duration. This will help you calculate the actual value for that search term – this is important because the number of impressions on your Search Console Search Analytics report do not equate to the number of searches for that search term, it only tells you the number of searches where your website was present.
3. SEA’s cheap CPCs allow for a quick validation
Part of the strategy consists in adding search terms that are already on your search console report, which means that your article somehow has some relevance for this search. If you know something about SEA, you’ll know that, if you have some relevance in on your page for that specific keyword, your AdRank will be higher and in exchange you’ll pay less for a click. This will allow you to have several clicks with a small budget so you can validate if the new search term actually converts.
4. Test the best ad copy for a higher CTR on organic results
After finding out if the new search term is the best choice for you and your webpage, and after adapting your page to it, it takes some time until you can start seeing some results. So, don’t stop your SEA campaign just yet. You have a chance – at a cheaper CPC, because you have adapted your page to that search term – to test the best copy you can add on your meta-description and text.
THE SIMPLE 4 STEPS:
1. Download a list of keywords from your Search Console
First, you will need your Google Search Console, Search Analytics report. Follow the image below and select the boxes: Impressions, Clicks, CTR, Position and filter it by the country you are optimizing to.
After, scroll to the bottom and download all keywords to a Google Docs url and you will get a docs sheet just like the one below:
2. Choose the right keywords
Now that you have a list of search terms, try to identify the ones that correspond to the same page. Here’s my example, I have 2 articles that are appearing for the 5 highlighted keywords (image).
Purple Article – What is GDN and ad types
Green Article – The different ways to advertise on Google Adwords
On the SEO side of things, I have already a great idea and now know that I could optimize for the search term “GDN sizes” – for the Purple article – because it has more searches during 90 days than the other search terms and my current position is 3.1. So I will want to adapt my page to that same search term. Also, the Green article, can be optimized for all the “type of AdWords ads” with some sort of table.
3. Add the new search terms to your SEA campaign
Now that those search terms were identified you should add them to a specific SEA campaign and test the copy that has the best CTR. Since these are articles being promoted, and Google already gives them some relevance to those search terms, the price you’re going to pay will be cheaper than the normal CPC for some non-related keyword. This will allow you to quickly test CTRs and get to your best meta-description.
Keep an eye out to for how many searches (impressions on your campaign) will you actually have.
Here you will also want to access the after click performance for the new search terms. Are people converting, staying long… It will give you an idea if adapting to this search term was really worth it and if there are other search terms with a better performance.
4. Keep the SEA campaign until you get first place if need
Now it’s time to have an integrated strategy between your SEA and SEO areas. Until you get to your best organic position, keep your SEA campaign on.
Conclusion
Yes, it is this simple. Now why aren’t doing it? Too time consuming? Do you have a better way to do it? Let me know.
Connect with me here: https://www.facebook.com/daSilva.Diogo or http://pt.linkedin.com/in/dasilvadiogo/
The opinions expressed in this article are of my own and do not represent any of the companies I am related to.