SEO and PPC Cheat Sheet to Plan a Successful Digital Marketing Strategy

SEO or PPC, which is a better option for your business?

Often a matter of debate, the answer to this question usually depends on a number of factors, including the type of business you run, your business objectives, and the marketplace.

While it takes forever for some businesses to get results with SEO, others don’t have the budget to run paid ads. Thus, many businesses tend to consider SEO and PPC as separate entities, where they invest only in one at a time.

But the fact is SEO and PPC are simply two different strategies working towards a common goal – to drive marketing qualified leads to your site.

Thus, almost every business can employ both SEO and PPC together and reap amazing results.

Though SEO and PPC are different in many ways, combining these two tactics can help businesses achieve far greater business outcomes and better SERP results.

Read through our comprehensive SEO and PPC cheat sheet to learn how to drive more traffic to your website and set your business up for success.

So, let’s get started.

How Can an SEO Cheat Sheet Help You?

Optimize Title and Description Tags

About 36% of SEOs think the title tag is the most important SEO element.

Well, the meta title and description, also known as meta tags, are second to none when it comes to SEO. They are typically the first encounter that a user has with a website after a Google search.

Therefore, it is vital to write relevant and descriptive meta tags.

Best practices to write effective meta tags

1. Include the focus keywords that are relevant to your business and webpage.

2. Stick to the predefined character limit of your meta title i.e. 60 characters, and meta description i.e. up to 160 characters.

3. Keep them unique and concise.

You can also use tools such as Google Search Console, Wordtracker, etc to build unique and keyword-rich titles and descriptions.

Meta tags not only help search engines understand the context of the web page and index it accordingly but also encourage more clicks from users when web pages are shared on other platforms. Thus, showing meta tags’ importance beyond the search engine results.

Did you know? Almost three-quarters of SEOs think content is the most important factor for optimizing your website for SEO.

Content marketing makes up a huge part of SEO. It not only drives your target audience to your website but also helps Google understand where to rank you.

Some of the effective ways to make your content stand out-

1. Using target keywords at the beginning of your content

2. Making use of H1, H2 tags

3. Adding internal links

4. Adding outbound links

Check out these 9 tips to create SEO-friendly content to strengthen your online presence.

Optimize for Voice Search

Advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) have a huge impact on how we interact and browse on the internet.

So much so that about 75% of voice search results can rank in the top three positions for a particular question on a desktop search.

How to Optimize Your Website for Voice Search?

1. Derive Customer Insights From Voice Search Algorithms: This will help you understand your target audience, user intent, and behavior of voice-enabled devices.

2. Focus On Long-Tail Keywords: Since long-tail keywords are longer, more specific, and more targeted, they provide search engines with more information to answer specific questions people ask.

3. Transform Queries into Questions: Use keywords strategically in questions that a voice search user would ask, such as “Where can I find pizza near me?” This way, it’s more likely that your content will be the answer they hear when asking a question.

4. Develop Web Pages That Answer ‘Frequently Asked Questions’: Voice searchers begin their queries with ‘what’, ‘when’, ‘where’, ‘why’, and ‘how’.

With these questions, users are looking for a relevant and immediate answer. So, you can create a FAQ page that conversationally addresses the voice search queries.

Use the Skyscraper Technique

Backlinks continue to remain one of Google’s main ranking factors.

The Skyscraper Technique is a link-building technique to create engaging content that will earn quality editorial links.

Three principles of the Skyscraper Technique:

1. Find popular content that has credible links from other sites.

2. Create a revised and improved version of the content on the same topic and publish it on your own site.

3. Promote the new version of the content to the right people.

SEO skyscraper technique revolves around being bigger, better, and more relevant than other websites on a particular topic. The goal is to create the biggest piece of content that stands above all, like a skyscraper. This is where the Skyscraper Technique gets its name from.

How Can a PPC Cheat Sheet Help You Plan Ad Campaigns?

With a PPC cheat sheet, you can plan and run a successful marketing campaign for your business. Here’s how:

Identify Business Goals

“Nobody reads ads. People read what interests them. Sometimes, it’s an ad.” – Howard Gossage.

Hence, plan what would interest your target audience.

Define your business objectives before you set a budget for your PPC campaign.

This is significant to create an effective Google Ads campaign. Before you invest in your ad campaign, you should know:

1. What is the aim of your campaign?

2. What will be the focus of your ad campaign?

3. What marketing activities can help you realize your objectives?

4. Do you want to increase the sale of your product or acquire leads?

Having answers to such questions will enable you to sketch a realistic paid ad campaign, configure your Google Ads account, review the benefits of marketing activities, and take advantage of Google Ads bidding options.

Experiment With Ad Copy Formats

An ad copy is a great way to explore what works with your target audience. It helps you map your buyer intent and target potential prospects and leads.

Therefore, it is important to create an ad copy that resonates with your target audience’s intent.

Leo Burnett says, “Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it fun to read.”

Different ad copy formats include Expanded Text Ads, Product Listing Ads (PLAs), and Image Ads.

Here are some best tips to create clickable ad copies:

1. Display your ads to the right demographic audience

2. Embrace simplicity and avoid using industry jargon

3. Attach credible social proof in your ad copy

4. Ensure strategic keyword placement in your copy

5. Always add a relevant and compelling Call-to-action

Analyze Your Campaign Performance

Once you’ve successfully launched an ad campaign, watch the keyword performance statistics like a hawk.

As a PPC advertiser, make sure you’re not spending on poorly performing ads and keywords. Instead, allocate your budget to top-performing keywords.

Run a comparative analysis to calculate your campaign reach and understand which keywords performed well.

Remember, it’s a wise idea to always track KPIs such as cost per click, bounce rate, conversion rate, click-through rate, quality score, return on ad spend, etc. to analyze your ad campaign performance and adjust your bids accordingly.

Analyzing these performance metrics will help you:

1. Optimize ad campaigns

2. Understand your target audience

3. Keep your budget under control

Create a Perfect Landing Page

Did you know?

The first 5 seconds of page load time have the highest impact on conversion rates. Each additional second a user waits for your site to load drops the website’s conversion rate by 4.42% on average.

While securing an ad click is the first step in the PPC journey, make sure you pay equal attention to the next one.

Therefore, it’s important to ensure your landing page performs well.

The most important thing is to verify that you’re sending the ad traffic to a landing page that’s relevant to your campaign. Don’t forget to always A/B test the headline copy, image, CTA color, click triggers, etc of your landing page before running an ad campaign.

Key Takeaway

Wrapping up the discussion on SEO and PPC cheat codes and techniques, we’d say that both of these digital marketing practices offer a great opportunity for improving conversions.

Taking an integrated approach will help you improve your brand visibility, boost ROI, increase website traffic, and more.

Therefore, unlock these cheat sheets, learn extensively about pro tips on organic and paid advertising, and let the two strengthen each other’s effectiveness.

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