How to Divide Your Marketing Budget Between SEO and PPC

SEO or PPC? This is a marketing question every business owner asks at some point. The dilemma here is that SEO is more sustainable but often takes a long time to show results. PPC, on the other hand, can attract you customers from the start. But this strategy forces you to keep spending money on every new customer. If you stop advertising, you stop seeing new customers.

If you’re just starting out, your marketing budget may be quite tight. Are you investing all of this in SEO and crossing your fingers until you see results? Or are you spending on PPC today and praying that your advertising costs don’t eat away at your already wafer-thin margins? We asked several industry experts to share their views with us. Here are some valuable opinions.

Know your industry

The answer to “SEO or PPC” depends on what your website does, your marketing budget, and the competition in the space. If you’re in a very niche industry with established authority, your chances of succeeding with SEO are pretty high, so you might not really need PPC.

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On the other hand, if you are entering an already mature market, it makes sense to divide your budget between SEO and PPC. According to Tom Vaughton, director of search marketing at Varn MediaThis is because PPC advertising helps attract business to your website quickly. In a mature market, pay-per-click advertising is also a good way to understand top-performing keywords. This can help strategize for SEO later.

Understand your brand and your audience

Not every website and business can perform well on both SEO and PPC. For example, if you have an innovative product or service that people aren’t looking for, then SEO is out of the question, because there really isn’t anyone searching for the keywords you’re ranking for. Along the same lines, if your product has very low margins, PPC may not be a choice because you tend to lose more money than you can earn. Dario Zadro, web strategist and owner in Chicago Zadro Web, suggests marketers ask themselves the following questions: Is your website already getting traffic? Does your website support an authoritative content strategy to target your visitors? Do you have an innovative product or service? He says when companies understand their brand and their audience; they can create effective content strategies that are crucial for SEO. However, while ROI can be measured quite easily in the case of PPC, it’s not easy with SEO. This is especially true in the early stages of your business, as the returns from search optimization are only seen in the long run.

Start SEO from the start

Seeded startups that want to gain traction often feel the need to postpone their SEO plans while they bring in clients through PPC. But according to Bill Sebald, the owner of Philadelphia Greenlane SEO, this is a missed opportunity. He points out that Google takes a “wait and see” approach when it comes to new websites, as many upcoming websites can often end up being abandoned or become spammy. He recommends that companies start SEO from the start: “Make sure the site development is technically flawless and the topics and relevance are solid. Get people (and websites) talking about you, which in turn will generate links and tap into other signals from Google,” says Sebald. PPC, he says, should be a focus from the time the site launches until organic traffic starts to flow. to augment.

When in doubt, use PPC

Often, startups are unsure of which keywords to target or the ROI of different marketing channels. According to Jonathan Bentz, chief marketing officer of the Pennsylvania-based company Netrepid, when unsure, it’s a good idea to start with PPC. He recommends starting with a small budget of around $500 and a bunch of “broad keywords” that allow the campaign to work with little tweaking or testing. This way, you will be able to identify the top performing keywords and posts that can be used to optimize the site for SEO. Bentz points out, however, that in the case of services or B2B, the cost per click could be extremely high. In such cases, it is better to focus on SEO instead.

Related: Don’t Trust Your SEO Company Until You Can Verify Everything They Tell You

Don’t forget about remarketing

No matter how good your pages are from an SEO and PPC perspective, not all of your targeted customers will buy from you the very first time. Depending on your niche, you may need multiple marketing communication cycles to get customers to open their wallets. Other times, you may need to target customers periodically depending on your product lifecycle.

For example, if you offer an auto maintenance service, it is a good idea to contact customers every six months at the time of maintenance. Email marketing is a way of remarketing. Another way is to use PPC for retargeting. Bryan Phelps, CEO of the Utah-based company big jump, points out that with all the stages of running a business, entrepreneurs often overlook the need to set up tracking codes and remarketing campaigns. These are absolutely essential to bring your audience back to your website and thus help improve conversions.

So how do you put these tips into practice? This short six-step process should get you started.

1. Run a short PPC campaign to identify keywords that convert and validate your business.

2. Use keyword data to develop an on-site search optimization strategy from launch.

3. Use part of your monthly marketing budget to invest in offsite SEO

4. Launch a full PPC campaign to start attracting customers from launch date until organic traffic increases.

5. As your site improves in organic rankings, adjust your budget allocation to reduce PPC spend and increase spend on SEO and other organic marketing strategies.

6. Remarketing to past visitors to improve conversion and trigger repeat purchases.

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