How to Use Paid & Organic Search to Drive the Best Results

The results from the Clutch and Ignite surveys are in! They confirm that using paid search and organic SEO are an important combined strategy, given the trends in customer buying journeys, mobile search and the longer consideration and decision making periods by website visitors.

Paid Search Complements Organic

Over 60% of companies focus on both paid and organic search. Many find paid search and the tools within paid search campaigns provide useful feedback in terms of keyword research, audience targeting, insights into communication styles and content that triggers a response, synergy in relation to organic search rankings, plus brand strength and organic click through rates.

“The ability to receive immediate feedback on keywords that have the highest conversion rates, which type of audiences get the highest conversion rates, and which type of ad copy and landing page copy get the best results truly support the development of a more effective SEO strategy when compared to blindly deciding to target certain keywords for SEO” was a common theme from respondents.

Says John Lincoln of Ignite ““While you will get a better ROI on organic search long-term, … always start with paid. Even mature websites that get millions of visitors a month from organic should invest in paid. The two complement each other. Paid is a bit more precise and controllable," said Lincoln. “… It’s all about knowing the right time to use each one and when to use them together.”

Bottom Line: Maintaining best practices for search was found to be particularly challenging given constant change from search engines and consumer trends. The study found businesses usually partner with an expert firm for paid Search services. In-house SEO staff, were found to excel at general services like social media and creating content to earn links.