The vast majority of people in Slovakia submit their search queries into Google. Unfortunately, only websites appearing on the first page of the search results have a realistic chance of achieving a click-through. The second page gets 10% of visitors. Almost a third of clicks are claimed by the top-ranking result.
How to get to the top of search
Relentless rules force sites to compete for the top spots in search – whether organically or with paid ads. Paid search results are the result of a PPC (Pay Per Click) strategy, organic ones are the result of quality SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).
What does PPC mean?
PPC advertising is paid advertising that makes a website appear at the top of a search. It works on a pay-per-click basis. This means that you don’t pay per impression, but per click.
With PPC advertising, you can quickly increase website traffic and achieve measurable results in a relatively short period of time.
What is SEO?
Unlike PPC campaigns, SEO delivers organic placement in search results. By optimising your website (with SEO) you aim to get your website to the highest possible ranking position.
One might say that it is achieved without having to pay for it. However, there is so much work behind quality SEO that ranking at the top is by no means free.
You can achieve better rankings by improving on-page and off-page SEO. In on-page SEO, you rise in organic search ranking thanks to responsive design, site speed, keywords and other factors that are within your control.
Zdroj: Seobility – License: CC BY-SA 4.0
In the case of off-page SEO, you build the authority of your site through linkbuilding.
Why do you need linkbuilding?
Linkbuilding (building backlinks) increases Domain Authority and has a big impact on the ranking of organic search results. This technique will impact the optimisation of your site and help build your online reputation.
If you get enough external links to your site from reputable sites (those that have authority), it will also strengthen your own site.
How to do linkbuilding in 2022
Create content that people will link to
It is every content creators and linkbuilders dream to acquire backlinks organically, simply because you have the perfect content on your site. Write well, write regularly and share your content on social media.
Guest blogging
Create an interesting article for another site and link from it back to your own. You receive a quality backlink and the affiliate site benefits from relevant content. Guest blogging will improve SEO and strengthen your linkbuilding portfolio. Paid PR articles with a link work on a very similar principle.
Links from already existing articles
Do you know of a great article that contains relevant keywords for linking? Contact the site and enquire about buying a backlink. Since the article is already written, this cooperation will cost you less and you will only pay the site owner the price for the hyperlink.
Mentions of your brand and broken links
Take advantage of broken links on other websites that point to a non-existent sub-page. Reach out to websites in your line of business that have broken links and offer to redirect them to your content.
Look for mentions of your brand or company on the Internet and propose that the author links the text to your website.
What can the combination of PPC and SEO achieve?
If you’re new to marketing, you’re probably wondering whether a high-quality PPC campaign will affect SEO results or whether polished SEO can improve the performance of PPC campaigns.
To a certain extent, yes, but you will notice their connection much more if you omit one of them. Instead, develop SEO and PPC so that they complement each other. Why?
You will improve your search engine presence
By improving your SEO, you increase your chances of appearing on the first page of a search for a particular keyword, or in the best possible case, in first position.
If you also have a PPC campaign running for that word, you will appear on the first page twice and completely dominate the first search results.
The chances of a potential customer clicking through to your site are much higher.
Are you top in SEO? Don’t switch off your PPC campaigns
Many website and online store owners believe that ranking first in organic search for a specific keyword is enough and as such, they choose to turn off their PPC campaign for the same term. They are then surprised because by turning off the PPC campaign, they also lose the top position.
The vast majority of traffic from PPC ads cannot be replaced by SEO. A combination of the two works best. PPC campaigns increase traffic and capture click-throughs which you would have lost without paid advertising.
Test the quality of your keywords with PPC campaigns
SEO is a marathon, not a sprint, and the road to real results can take months. If you’re considering which keywords are suitable for building your SEO strategy, first check their viability through a PPC campaign.
Pick a keyword that you think is likely to rank high in search results and create a PPC campaign for it.
Monitor the results and if a given phrase appears to be performing well, optimise a specific sub-page for it.
Catch organic visitors without conversions
Do you have a website that ranks reasonably well in search results thanks to SEO? A high position probably brings you nice traffic. But how are you doing with conversions?
Nowadays, the customer journey is extremely long. The average person visits a website several times before they actually make a purchase. Without PPC campaigns, you run the risk of being quickly forgotten.
This means that even a customer you attracted organically can easily be lost. By the time they get tangled up in the maze of social networks and searches, they’ll discover other options and, without advertising, they’re unlikely to come back to you.
Remarket to your visitors with PPC campaigns and don’t let your competitors snatch them away. By combining PPC and SEO, you will:
· reach out to visitors who abandoned the site,
· direct them back to your page, and
· support them in completing their purchase.
Integrate PPC data from campaigns and linkbuilding
Taking a responsible approach to creating campaigns brings quality PPC data to your business. From this, you can analyse your existing campaigns and create new and better performing ones. Their role doesn’t end there. Use the information you collect to improve your linkbuilding.
Find your most powerful landing page
When you have a large website with a lot of campaigns, it is hard to know which subpage is the most suitable for linkbuilding. The answer can be found in the analytics available from PPC campaigns.
You’ll be able to find out the performance of individual subpages as well as how your target audience is responding to the keywords you’ve selected.
Analyse the target URL from the campaign and compare the conversion rate or CTR (Click-Through Rate). Use the best performing subpages for linkbuilding campaigns.
PPC data will expose weak subpages
Based on data from PPC campaigns, find subpages that generate high click-through rates but where customers don’t take the desired action.
They were probably attracted to the text of the ad, but not to the content and the website. This means you have a great keyword but poor processing. Think about how you can improve the existing content and create an attractive sub-page for linkbuilding.
Take the first spot in Google
Do you want to succeed and appear on the first page of search results? Are you no longer able to cover all areas of digital marketing on your own?
Give your full attention to your business and leave SEO, PPC campaigns and linkbuilding to an international team of experts.
