What if I told you that some of the best SEO insights don’t come from organic search data alone?
When SEO data is viewed in isolation, it only explains what’s happening in the organic search channel.
However, in reality, businesses relying on SEO are supported by multiple channels.
Often, PPC and SEO are treated separately, which reduces efficiency and leads to missed opportunities.
This article outlines our agency’s process for conducting a co-optimization audit, combining SEO and PPC data to uncover insights for a more holistic, full-funnel approach. I’ll also share strategies to help you take this method of holistic search even further.
Why should you do an SEO-PPC co-optimization audit?
Both SEO and PPC target the same searchers and operate in the same search landscape. By taking a holistic approach, you can achieve better results for your business.
Paid search provides SEO with valuable data not available elsewhere, while SEO enhances paid search through on-site and off-site optimizations that boost overall performance.
Combining these efforts creates a more effective search strategy.
Dig deeper: SEO vs. PPC: Differences, pros, cons & an integrated approach
How to do a co-optimization audit
We’ll cover how to conduct this audit when you have first-party data for both channels, but many of these ideas can still apply even if you don’t have access to paid data.
Combining data
To uncover insights between paid and organic, you’ll need to combine the data first. Though there are many options, we’ll focus on two ways to do this.
Power BI
Power BI is a free and powerful tool for combining and visualizing data effectively. Our team uses it to merge data when we don’t have direct access to Google Search Console and Google Ads.
To do this, export your search query report from Google Ads and the same date range from Google Search Console. You can also include page data. But for this analysis, we’ll focus mainly on queries.
Google Ads paid and organic report
The paid and organic report in Google Ads shows which search terms boost your site’s visibility. You need specific permissions and link Google Search Console with Google Ads to use it.
Once connected, the report shows terms that triggered your paid ads, appeared in organic search, or both.
By comparing this data side by side, you can assess the performance of your paid and organic search efforts.
While organic conversion data isn’t available, the report can reveal gaps where high-converting keywords have little organic traffic, presenting opportunities for further optimization.
Here’s a look at that report:
Ad metrics like clicks, impressions and average cost per click give you insights into how often people see and engage with your ads.
For organic results:
Organic clicks show how often people click your site’s unpaid listing.
Organic queries count how many times your site shows up in searches.
Organic clicks/query shows the average number of clicks per search.
Organic listings/query shows how often your site appears per query.
In combined metrics:
Ads and organic clicks represent all clicks from both ads and organic results.
Ads and organic queries count the total searches that triggered either.
Ads and organic clicks/query gives the click-to-query ratio for both.
Google’s help article, “About measuring paid and organic search results,” explains all the available metrics in this report.
Identifying keyword gaps
The focus of our co-optimization audit is to recommend changes in approach in the following areas.
No paid or organic visibility
One of the first places to look for paid and organic synergies is in queries where the brand lacks visibility in both channels. Assuming these keywords are those you want to show up for, you’ll want to consider ways to pursue them.
Strong organic visibility: Top 5 high-ranking non-brand keywords
Identify non-brand keywords that rank in the top five positions with high search volume and optimize them using a mix of paid and organic strategies.
The goal is to dominate the top of the SERP, which can lead to more clicks than either channel would achieve on its own.
People tend to trust brands that consistently appear at the top. When your brand shows up multiple times on a SERP, it signals authority and reinforces that you are the best choice for that product or service.
Low organic visibility
Focus on high-volume keywords that rank on Page 2 or lower to determine if paid search can enhance visibility.
SEO typically takes time to show results and teams often invest hundreds of thousands of dollars pursuing certain terms without a corresponding budget for paid search.
Meanwhile, paid search teams may identify SEO keyword targets and think, “We should be appearing for this; we have XYZ as a broad or phrase match.”
However, just because we’re eligible for those terms in the auction doesn’t mean we’re investing enough in them.
It’s crucial to take your best-performing keyword portfolio and allocate a significant portion of your ad spend to those terms.
The only caveat is that if you’re tracking many informational terms or thousands of keywords, you must pinpoint the top ones for your paid search focus.
Competitor visibility
Examine competitor rankings for important keywords to address their advantages through paid efforts.
Observing where competitors excel in paid search can offer valuable insights for SEO strategies.
Similarly, identifying keywords where competitors rank highly but you do not can reveal meaningful opportunities for your paid search team to target.
Dig deeper: 7 reports SEO and PPC can use to help each other succeed
Evaluating true ad incrementality
For keywords where the brand ranks in positions 1-3, the co-optimization process evaluates whether allocating additional ad spend would generate incremental ad clicks (based on Google’s old incrementality study).
Additionally, there may be opportunities to redirect paid spend in areas where organic rankings are already strong.
While these strategies may seem contradictory, they highlight the importance of continuous testing.
Although the Google study suggests spending on keywords you already rank for is highly effective, our data indicates that this is not always the case.
To address potential paid search cannibalization, we analyze situations where clients might be bidding on uncontested auctions – meaning they are the only ones paying for clicks, which would likely go to organic results anyway.
Dig deeper: Top 7 Google Ads and SEO synergies you should act upon
Going beyond keywords
Our standard SOP analysis for co-optimization focuses solely on keyword targets and the overlap in how we optimize for visibility.
That said, there are several other places that synergies exist between these two channels.
As you think about executing your own co-optimization auditing, here are some of the other areas you’ll want to consider.
Page-level optimizations
Incorporating your PPC campaign’s target terms directly onto the landing pages can significantly enhance performance.
Users expect a strong connection between their search query, the ad they click on and the page they land on.
Unfortunately, many PPC marketers focus solely on the platform and neglect to make necessary changes to the website.
This is where SEO plays a crucial role in ensuring that target keywords align with the content on the page.
In one experiment, which we turned into a case study, we hypothesized that aligning SEO and PPC keywords would improve ad quality scores and reduce cost-per-acquisition (CPA).
Although the quality scores remained unchanged, we observed substantial reductions in cost-per-click (CPC) for most aligned keywords, with some experiencing drops of 50-100%.
Despite the lack of impact on quality scores, this alignment effectively lowered overall campaign costs, helping us achieve broader objectives.
Conversion data
If you’ve been involved in SEO since before 2012, you likely remember when we had access to keyword-level data for every organic search term.
Unfortunately, that level of detail is no longer available to SEOs, but we can still turn to paid search for this valuable data.
In our co-optimization audit, we don’t focus on keywords that convert, as we address those earlier in our keyword research process.
However, it’s wise to analyze which keywords drive the most conversions in Google Ads and ensure that your SEO strategy prioritizes those keywords.
High CTR copy
You should be mining your PPC campaigns for high click-through rate (CTR) headlines and descriptions.
Apply these successful elements to your meta information to achieve higher CTRs, which, as you now know, can lead to improved rankings.
This is a straightforward yet impactful way to leverage PPC data for SEO success.
Don’t stop there
You can co-optimize and leverage data from both paid and organic search in countless ways. After all, it’s all about optimizing for the same SERPs.
Co-optimizing your paid and organic search efforts is not a one-time task; it’s an ongoing discovery and refinement process essential to a holistic search marketing strategy.
By consistently analyzing combined data, you can uncover trends, identify new opportunities and stay ahead in the ever-changing search landscape.
Keep testing, measuring and fine-tuning your approach to maximizing your keyword portfolio. The insights gained through co-optimization will enhance your search visibility and drive meaningful results for your business.
Dig deeper: 4 keys to SEO and PPC collaboration
