You have a new website and it’s time to start driving traffic. The question becomes should I focus on paid search or SEO? While having both an SEO and Paid search presence is critical to your digital strategy, below are 3 reasons to start with paid search.
1. Conversion Data
Paid search holds several advantages over SEO. A big one is instant data. Data is the window into the performance of your digital strategy. SEO takes time before you start gathering enough data to make decision. The data collection process can be a much slower go for SEO. Paid search is the opposite. For example you could go live with a modest paid search campaign today and likely have data the same day. With this data you can understand how your site is converting. This will help you optimize your website before investing your time and energy into SEO.
2. Keyword Data
Keywords are at the heart of both SEO and PPC. An SEO roll out typically begins with a limited number of keywords. It’s easy to miss out of other keywords that can perform well. Paid search allows you to not only see how well your chosen keywords from SEO perform, but also other keywords that are in your paid search list perform. Keywords that are converting on the paid search side, and be added to the SEO strategy.
3. Titles and descriptions
Messaging and call to actions.are typically written with the hope they will yield a decent click through rate. This is an area that can often get neglected on the SEO side. Although the search engines limit the number of characters that can be included in a PPC ad, these messages can give insight into which headlines, descriptions, and call to actions yield strong click through rates. You can also determine which of these messages are yielding the highest number of conversions. This will allow you to better hone in on what is actually performing for your site.
Conclusion
The bottom line is both SEO and PPC are essential to grow your online presence. Starting with paid search will help ensure that you are focusing on the most essential items first. This will save you a lot of time, effort, and potentially money in the long run.