If you have read several articles, tutorials, and blog posts relating to SEO and paid advertising such as PPC, you might have concluded that each of these marketing strategies is done in isolation from the other. In other words, most of the content online about either SEO or PPC suggest that they are done separately and almost to the extent that they compete with each other.

That is not surprising given that some marketers are huge fans of PPC and will write passionately about its merits and how it can quickly drive traffic to websites. Other marketers are SEO experts who are fully committed to keeping on top of the unending changes Google makes to its algorithm and helping to drive “free” organic traffic to websites.

You will note that we placed “free” in quotations as no traffic is completely free because there will be a financial cost to create an SEO campaign, or at the very least, there is a time cost given how long some SEO campaigns take to bear results.

Despite all of their differences and the situation where some marketers appear to be in either the PPC camp or the SEO camp, the fact is that neither of them should be seen as the antithesis of the other. We will go further than that and state that one of the best and most effective ways to create a successful traffic generation campaign is to utilise both SEO and PPC within that campaign.

In other words, we are suggesting that rather than having to choose one or the other, you instead use both SEO and PPC to complement the benefits and advantages that each of them has. This way the individual results that each can provide are enhanced when those results are combined. Continue reading, and we will explain ten effective strategies to achieve what we have just described.

#1 – Implement A PPC Campaign For Immediate Traffic: If your business requires immediate traffic, then the quickest way to achieve this online is to start a PPC campaign. By setting an affordable budget, bidding on relevant keywords, and producing ad copy that will convert you could have traffic arriving on your website within minutes of your PPC campaign going live.

#2 – Implement An SEO Campaign For Long-Term, Sustainable Traffic: From the fast traffic to the slower but often more sustainable and reliable traffic that SEO can produce. Be aware that you will need to be patient with SEO. However, you can get faster results by turning over your SEO to a local SEO agency. They may not create traffic overnight, but it will certainly arrive sooner thanks to their SEO expertise and experience.

It is often baffling to see experienced webmasters or website owners who use both SEO and paid advertising (Google Ads), but who never realise they complement each other in so many ways. They are blissfully unaware that by combining both strategies and using some of the data that Google Ads marketing can generate, they could enhance their SEO and rankings further than they already have.

From the outset, we must appreciate that each business’s ability to implement a Google Ads campaign will be tempered by the resources they have, not least of which will be their budget. However, even if you only have the means to set up a few small campaigns, you should do so, for the advantages in relation to your SEO which are set out below.

#1 Gaining Visibility for Keywords at The Top of The SERPs

Whenever you do search on Google at the top of the results you will see three of four listings with a little yellow box that has the word ‘Ad’ in it. This indicates that those listings have used Google Ads to appear there. Apart from the obvious benefit of having a 63% chance of your website link being clicked, being at the top of the paid results can help your organic rankings in the longer run.

Assuming your website is optimised, users who click through will spend time on your site and be clicking through pages, which is seen by Google as a positive. You also gain more authority and trust when you have a paid ad appearing on Google’s results. The goal is to get to the point where you appear at the top of both the organic and paid results. That is when you can really claim to be established.