Pay per click (PPC) is a highly effective marketing tool, but many organisations get it wrong. Wasted spend on PPC is huge, largely because companies bid on the wrong terms and fail to synchronise their paid and natural search campaigns. So what can you do to ensure that these search engine marketing techniques work alongside each other to maximise return on internet spend? First and foremost, careful preparation of a paid search account is at the heart of every successful combined, natural and PAC search campaign.

Planning

1 It's tempting to rush and get your PPC account live, but a researched approach, releasing the campaign only when complete, will ensure greater success.

2 Keyword research Paid search campaigns should be built around popular industry keywords, but also use the terms that are successfully finding your site through natural search. Building content around the keyword data in your analytics package will also help you increase traffic to your site.

3 SEO landing pages Ensure that all landing pages are just as SEO-friendly as your homepage. A well-optimised landing page will help you to better search positions in natural and paid listings. If you need to use isolated landing pages away from the rest of the site, make sure they're well-crafted in order to increase your Google quality score.

Usability

1 Users arriving from paid search listings should be sent straight to the relevant pages. Information should be clear and concise, and a user should always know what the next step is. This is the key to a successful sales conversion. If users are unable to find what they're looking for, they'll give up fast!

Analytics

5 To stay ahead of the game in natural and paid search, it's vital that you study traffic and user data. Creating new pages, adding keywords and advertisements to your paid campaigns, and shortening user journeys will move you in the right direction.

This post was last modified: 09-01-08 03:34 PM by vwdesigns.