Internet marketing can be complex. How do SEO, Google & Ads interact? Among website owners, there are many misunderstandings. The most common ones are regarding Google ranking, SEO, and advertisements. Let me break it down for you.
GOOGLE RANKING: Everybody wants to rank on the first page of Google, but that’s easier said than done when your website competes with millions of other sites. There are more than 200 factors that Google looks into when determining your ranking. Some are proven. Some are controversial. Others are SEO nerd speculation. Some factors are almost beyond your control. Long story short; there is no quick fix to rank higher on Google. You have to work hard for it.
SEO: Most people already know what SEO has to do with optimizing content on a site. That’s right, but there is MUCH more to know. There are also technical factors involved. But before you start your SEO optimization, you must have a clear vision and a strategy. Most of all, you must have done market research, studied your competitors, and keyword research! Keyword research is the first step in SEO copywriting and an essential part of any SEO strategy.
KEYWORD RESEARCH: Website owners often use words that they THINK are relevant for their business, but that is not enough, and it is definitively not a keyword research! Real keyword research involves identifying popular words and phrases people enter into search engines. Researching keywords gives marketers a better understanding of how high the demand is for certain words and how hard it would be to compete for those terms in the organic search results, offering some direction to optimization efforts. By researching the words people type into search engines and using this research to create targeted content, you can drive the right traffic to your site — traffic that is more likely to convert.
AD CAMPAIGNS: Google and Social Media want ads to be relevant and of high quality. They give scores for this. Google's Quality Score is an estimate of the quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages. Higher quality ads can lead to lower prices, better ad positions, and more conversions. Facebook’s relevance works similarly. It is a metric in ads reporting that provides an estimate of how relevant an ad is to its target audience, based on how the ad is performing and other factors. When your ad's score is high, it's more likely to be shown to your audience than other ads. You also pay less to reach more of your target audience. Therefore, it is essential that you have done market and keyword research, as well as SEO on your site before you start paying for ads. Consequently, Ad campaigns should be the last piece of the puzzle. Not the first.
I recommend that you do things in the following order:
1. PREPARATION AND RESEARCH: Market research (including studying the competition).
2. FUNDAMENTALS: Keyword research, SEO, site structure and lay out, landing page, sales funnel, payment gate, Google My Business, Google Search Console/webmaster tools, Google Analytics, Google AdWords, Social Media.
3. SALES: Start your ad campaigns, do A/B testing, monitor the results, use various tools to analyze and optimize your campaigns.
My best advice is to do things right from the beginning. Do things in the correct order.