SEO and PPC: An Introduction

Marketing in the tech age can feel daunting, especially when there’s an alphabet soup of acronyms and abbreviations to wade through. Let’s break down two of the most important when it comes to effective marketing for your business—SEO and PPC.

What is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Basically, it’s a strategy—or collection of strategies—for optimizing websites so that they rank high in organic search results. When you do a web search and that first website pops up in the search results, that’s no accident. That company or organization has likely worked very hard to make sure their website ranks high.

Should you make SEO a priority?

Absolutely! Google considers “user experience” extremely important. In fact, it’s part of their mission to make information “accessible and useful.” The updates Google periodically makes to their search algorithm reflect their commitment to returning the most relevant search results to users. Since they place such importance on the end user’s experience with websites, this definitely affects how your website ranks in search results. 

These days, if you want to do well on the web, you must have a website that delivers a good experience for users, and a good SEO strategy is part of that. While SEO can seem complicated, the good news is it is very doable. However, SEO is not a one-and-done thing. Maintaining good user experience and keeping up with Google’s ever-changing algorithms takes on-going attention and effort. Partnering with an SEO expert can really help maximize your results.

What is PPC?

PPC stands for Pay Per Click, and it refers to ads that you create for your business to get your website to appear in the search results. Although PPC ads can act as a great complement to your organic SEO, you can also think of PPC as a way to “buy” visits to your site. Plus, you pay for PPC ads only when someone clicks on them. Sounds good, right? 

Should you make PPC a priority?

Absolutely! When implemented correctly, a PPC ad strategy can have an immediate positive impact on your business. If the ads drive visitors to your website, then the visits may be worth more to you than the ads’ initial cost. 

A good PPC strategy starts with researching and choosing the right keywords to organize into ad campaigns. It’s also important to make sure your website has optimized landing pages to support the traffic that your ad campaigns generate. If this sounds like a lot of work, it is! But Google rewards those who work to make relevant, intelligently-targeted campaigns by charging them less for ad clicks—which can translate to higher profits for your business. As with SEO, partnering with an expert in creating effective PPC campaigns can drive real results for your bottom line.

At The Barbauld Agency, we understand how effective SEO and PPC can impact your business. You can read more about the specifics of SEO and PPC strategies and the right and wrong ways to implement both in future blog posts. You can also contact us anytime to schedule a no-obligation meeting to discuss how we can help your digital marketing efforts.