10 Tips for Combining SEO & Paid Search

One way to effectively mix SEO and PPC: Stay ahead of the curve and utilize new innovations that enable you to weave micro-formats and RSS feeds into search listings.

In an iMedia Connection article published today, Mike Dobbs — Group Director, SEO at 360i — outlines 10 tips for combining SEO & paid search in your digital marketing programs. We’ve provided a brief summary below, but you can read the full article over on iMedia’s Web site.

While search engine optimization (SEO) and paid search are often seen as independent processes by digital marketers, the consumer sees a search results page as a single experience, and research shows that paid and natural search do impact eachother. Here’s a look at 10 key force-multipliers that leverage search results pages to maximize the impact of both your PPC and SEO efforts:

1. Follow proven SEO best practices
There are many standard best practices, but avoiding duplicate content is a vital SEO rule for retailers. Duplicate content is a term used in the field of search engine optimization to describe content that appears on more than one webpage. Embracing the “canonical tag” is an elegant solution for avoiding duplicate content.

2. Evaluate your paid search campaign structure against your own site architecture
Following your site’s architecture when setting up your campaigns and ad groups can help reveal untapped opportunities for your paid search efforts. Do you have an ad group for each of your product categories and promotions? Walk through your site map and compare it against your PPC campaign to make sure you cover all the bases.

3. Take a holistic approach to PPC bidding and ad creative
Running paid ads that include timely promotions and a call-to-action alongside natural search results for your brand can actually increase overall click-through rates (CTRs) on natural search listings, providing higher ROI across your search efforts.

Results of a SearchIgnite study showed that natural search clicks were 17 percent higher on days when paid search ads were running, garnering more “free” clicks simply by running paid search ads alongside natural search results. In addition, total conversions and revenue on both paid and natural terms dramatically increased on days when paid search ads were running.

4. Optimize landing pages
Landing page optimization should be status quo for most sophisticated search marketers. For retailers, advanced optimization efforts can propel a search campaign from good to great.

5. Develop a content diversification strategy
Universal search results — i.e., non-text listings such as images, videos, and maps — are growing in prominence across all of the engines as consumers seek out diverse types of content on the engines. As such, brands should incorporate content-building into their SEO strategies and seek to diversify their content types as much as possible.

6. Think locally
Get mapped if you have a brick and mortar presence. This helps capture consumer interest when looking for physical locations and can aid in drive-to-store efforts. Make sure you have a local landing page strategy that includes a unique landing page for each location and a specific URL with details and content that is unique per location.

For a more holistic and complete search strategy, leverage and incorporate these detail pages into your paid, natural, and feed initiatives as well.

7. Know your seasonality
Learn from last season’s data and identify what worked — and what didn’t — from past years’ efforts. Have an evergreen SEO strategy to gain relevance year round.

8. Analyze your analytics
Improving search performance largely hinges on the level of data you have and your ability to understand and act on it. Spend quality time with your analytic tools. Evaluate your current level of quality control, as well as your existing segmentation of paid, natural, and other marketing programs.  It’s easy to just ignore the moving parts, but fine tuning your attribution strategy will provide more accurate data for critical business decisions.

9. Know the competition’s strategy
The best defense is a good offense, and this is especially true in search as competition for top natural links increases across the engines. Create a process to monitor the search programs of your competitors, including their messaging, positioning, and price listings in ad creative to see how you measure up. Keep an eye on potential threats by assessing how your competitors differ in both natural and paid, especially by product category.

10. Be an early adopter
Becoming an earlier adopter of coding techniques for structured data delivery can separate you from the competition. Leverage emerging solutions like rich snippets or “SearchMonkey” bring more value to the search results listing and could improve quality CTR.

The search landscape is evolving quickly as the major search engines continue to innovate. This creates both new challenges and new opportunities for marketers. Whether it’s fundamental tried-and-true best practices, getting your hands dirty in the data, or trying something new, search opportunities for retailers are plentiful. All of the strategies discussed here can help add some needed horsepower to your holiday campaigns and prepare you for the fast-approaching 2010.