As you’d expect our opinion is that
SEO and
PPC should generally be under one roof if outsourced to an agency. Arguably some agencies are often better or more experienced in one of these forms of Search Engine Marketing but when working in synergy the rewards are often much greater. Here’s just a few reasons why..
Ad Copy and Meta Data Optimisation: The text that appears in Search Engines, whether under Natural Search listings or on a PPC advert obviously plays a significant role in your click through rate. With PPC you can test different messaging instantly and often these findings can be transferred to your Meta data optimisation.
Landing Page Optimisation: PPC landing pages are predominantly judged on conversion rate, SEO landing pages are designed to rank highly in Search Engine listings for target keyphrases. Mix the two together and what have you got? The perfect landing page!
Search Phrase Visibility: Often the strategy is to put PPC ads alongside a well ranked generic term to double the visibility on Page 1. Hey it’s even recommended by Google… (ask yourself why!) These high volume, generic phrases are often not the term that actually converts, it is instead a phrase further along the purchase cycle. By knowing where you rank well naturally and where you are bidding through PPC you should be aiming to cover this buying cycle.. from research terms through to the long tail!
User Experience: By using the same search agency for SEO and PPC you are more likely to maintain one tone of voice in the search engines. Ad copy, Natural search listings and landing page copy should have one ‘search voice’ resulting in a unified brand experience.
Buying free traffic: No communication between PPC and SEO often results in buying traffic you would have got anyway when ranking well in the natural listings. Unless you’ve got a small number of keywords to target or an infinite budget.. “Bid on something else!”
Learning from Search: Lessons can be learnt in both areas of Search Engine Marketing. Transferring these lessons from one to the other is near impossible when managed by separate agencies. As I said these are just a few reasons. Add to this the advantages managing one agency can have on your working day such as management efficiency and reporting and there seem to be more advantages than disadvantages. I’m interested to hear your comments and experiences on this topic so please comment.