How SEO and SEM Work Together

SEO and SEM may seem like separate strategies, but they share the common goal of increasing visibility and driving traffic. The key to using these strategies in tandem is understanding how each can support the other, creating a more comprehensive digital marketing approach.

1. Use SEM to Test Keywords for SEO

One of the most effective ways to use SEO and SEM together is by utilizing SEM to test keyword performance before committing to long-term SEO efforts. Paid search campaigns provide a quicker and more measurable way to understand which keywords convert best. Once you've identified the highest-performing keywords, you can apply them to your SEO strategy for organic ranking.

Real Example: Airbnb

Airbnb, a global leader in the short-term rental market, uses SEM to test keywords before incorporating them into their SEO strategy. By running Google Ads campaigns targeting specific keywords like “vacation rentals in [destination],” they can quickly assess which keywords lead to higher conversions and which terms resonate most with their target audience. Once they identify high-performing keywords, Airbnb incorporates these into their SEO content strategy, including blog posts, landing pages, and meta tags.

How to Implement This Strategy:

• Run paid campaigns targeting a variety of keywords.
• Monitor which keywords lead to conversions or engagement.
• Apply the high-converting keywords to your website’s SEO strategy.
• Track the performance over time to ensure sustained organic visibility.

2. Boost SEO Results with Paid Ads

While SEO results take time to show, SEM offers an immediate boost. By running targeted paid ads for specific keywords, you can increase your visibility in the short term while your SEO efforts begin to take effect. This strategy helps you capture immediate traffic and brand awareness while working on building your organic presence.

Real Example: The Home Depot

The Home Depot uses SEM to target high-volume, competitive keywords that may be difficult to rank for through SEO alone. For example, when a user searches for a popular term like “home improvement tools,” Home Depot appears as a paid result in addition to their organic listing. This dual visibility ensures that Home Depot captures the user regardless of whether they click on the paid ad or the organic listing.

By maintaining both SEO and SEM efforts, Home Depot dominates the SERP for highly competitive keywords and boosts brand recognition, even before they have achieved high rankings for those terms organically.

How to Implement This Strategy:

• For competitive keywords, use SEM to appear in the paid search results while you work on your SEO strategy.
• Target keywords that are difficult to rank for organically with PPC ads.
• Monitor the performance of paid campaigns and adjust your bids or targeting accordingly.
• Use the visibility from paid search ads to build brand awareness.

3. Use SEM to Fill Gaps in SEO Coverage

No matter how comprehensive your SEO strategy is, there will always be gaps in terms of keywords or queries where your organic ranking isn’t strong. SEM allows you to fill those gaps by bidding on keywords that your site isn’t ranking for yet. This ensures that you can capture traffic for those important but underperforming terms while you continue to optimize your website for better rankings.

Real Example: Amazon

Amazon uses both SEO and SEM to cover all bases. For instance, while they may rank organically for a range of product-related keywords, they also run paid search ads to ensure visibility for niche or emerging product categories that are harder to rank for through SEO. When users search for “best noise-canceling headphones,” Amazon shows up as both an organic and paid result, ensuring maximum visibility and increasing the chances of conversion.

How to Implement This Strategy:

• Analyze your website’s SEO performance and identify keyword gaps.
• Use SEM to target these keywords with paid ads while you work on improving your organic rankings.
• Monitor the effectiveness of your paid ads in driving traffic for those hard-to-rank terms.
• Adjust your SEO strategy over time to close the gaps identified by SEM.

4. Improve Ad Performance with SEO Insights

The data you collect from SEO can be a goldmine for improving your SEM campaigns. For example, if your website’s content is consistently ranking well for certain keywords, this could indicate that these keywords are highly relevant to your audience. By using this information, you can refine your SEM campaigns, adjusting your ad copy, targeting, and bidding strategies to improve ad performance.

Real Example: WordStream

WordStream, a PPC management platform, uses the data from their SEO efforts to optimize their SEM campaigns. By understanding which keywords are performing well organically, they can create more targeted PPC ads, ensuring that the ad copy mirrors the language and themes that resonate with their audience. This alignment helps improve Quality Score in Google Ads, leading to better ad placements and lower costs per click.

How to Implement This Strategy:

• Analyze the keywords that are performing well in organic search.
• Use those insights to craft more targeted ad copy that mirrors high-performing SEO content.
• Ensure alignment between your organic content and paid ad messaging to maintain consistency and relevancy.
• Track ad performance and adjust targeting or bidding strategies accordingly.

5. Use Paid Search to Drive Traffic to Content and Build Links for SEO

Running SEM campaigns to promote high-quality content, such as blog posts, whitepapers, or case studies, can provide a dual benefit. Not only do you drive immediate traffic, but the increased traffic can result in more backlinks, which in turn can boost your SEO efforts. Additionally, when people see your content in paid search results, they may link to it or share it on social media, contributing to organic growth.

Real Example: HubSpot

HubSpot, a leading inbound marketing software company, often runs SEM campaigns for content promotion. They might pay to promote a blog post about lead generation or an ebook about content marketing. By driving traffic to this valuable content, they generate not only immediate leads but also backlinks and social shares, which can improve the content’s SEO performance over time.

How to Implement This Strategy:

• Promote valuable content through SEM to drive immediate traffic.
• Measure how traffic from paid search results in social shares or backlinks.
• Leverage the increased visibility to earn organic links and improve search rankings.
• Optimize your content to capture leads or encourage further engagement.

Best Practices for Integrating SEO and SEM

To successfully use SEO and SEM together, it’s important to follow a few best practices:

1. Consistent Keyword Strategy: Align your keyword research for both SEO and SEM. Use tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, and Ahrefs to identify high-volume, high-conversion keywords and incorporate them into both your paid and organic strategies.

2. Budget Allocation: While SEM provides quick results, SEO is a long-term investment. Strike a balance between allocating your budget for paid ads and investing in SEO to build lasting traffic.

3. Data Sharing: Ensure that data from your SEM campaigns informs your SEO strategy and vice versa. Both organic and paid channels provide valuable insights that can optimize the other.

4. Monitor Performance: Continuously track the performance of both your SEO and SEM efforts. Tools like Google Analytics and Google Ads allow you to monitor key metrics and adjust campaigns as needed.

5. Test and Iterate: Both SEO and SEM benefit from constant testing. A/B test landing pages, ad copy, and keyword targeting regularly to improve results.

Conclusion

Using SEO and SEM in tandem can yield powerful results when executed correctly. By leveraging paid search to supplement SEO, test keywords, fill gaps, and drive traffic to valuable content, businesses can improve both their organic and paid performance. The integration of these two strategies allows for immediate results from SEM while building long-term success through SEO.

Real-world companies like Airbnb, Amazon, WordStream, and HubSpot have demonstrated the power of combining SEO and SEM. By adopting a holistic approach, businesses can increase their visibility, drive traffic, and ultimately boost conversions, ensuring they stay ahead of the competition in the ever-evolving digital marketplace.