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Do SEO and SEA reinforce each other or not?

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Reading time minutes
By Shannah de Ruijter

SEO and SEA ultimately have the same goal, a click to your website from search engine results. But does that make these channels "competitors" to each other or can they actually reinforce each other? 

If you look at the search engine results in Google, SEA almost always wins out over SEO. After all, the ads rank above the organic search results. Depending on your screen size, you often don't even see the organic search results. Especially on your smartphone, these results pale into insignificance. After the ads, you also get to see the rich snippets, images and location services first. Does SEO still make sense, you ask yourself....

And rightly so, because this "SEA trend" will continue for some time to come. Google Ads continue to evolve. 

But does SEO really suffer from lower visibility?

From research shows that the position of the SERP is crucial to performance, though. Google added a fourth ad line at the top of search results in 2016. This increased the performance of SEA, which simply gained more visibility at the expense of SEO.

Desktop search results overview US phone: 

SearchUser in search engine results (SEO and SEA)Phone overview search results

Does this mean you don't have to put any more time into SEO?

We believe that SEO is still very valuable. 

In SEA, you pay for volume. Extra volume also means extra costs, you pay per click and this does not always pay for itself. SEO is basically only an investment in terms of time in the beginning. You have a fairly stable base of volume once it is established. In other words, long-term investment in SEO is definitely valuable. 

So how can these channels reinforce each other?

SEA is especially a good channel to generate a lot of traffic / brand awareness quickly. But this also comes at a cost. And you may not always reach the people who are already ready for the final, desired conversion. 

In the long run, of course, you want to reach the target audience without cost per click. Here lies an opportunity for SEO and SEO and SEA can reinforce each other. With SEO, you can generate a broad layer of traffic to the website. There you can filter interesting visitors and retarget them with SEA. In any case, you then spend money on a target group that A) has already shown interest and B) is already a step further along the customer journey to make the purchase. 

Good landing pages essential for SEO and SEA

As a SEA specialist, you strive for a good quality score within your campaigns. After all, this can save you serious money. For an optimal quality score, it is important that the landing page where the campaign lands matches the advertisement, contains relevant keywords and is user-friendly. 

SEO can help you do this and ensure that users have the ultimate experience on your landing page. This collaboration will lower the CPC. 

usability of landing page (SEO and SEA)

More clicks within search results

Another advantage in which SEO and SEA can reinforce each other is within search results. If you have a good position within search engine results through both SEA and SEO, you have a greater chance of getting more traffic to your website!

Make SEA and SEO work together for optimal results!

SEO and SEA may be in the same pond, but certainly not as competitors. Look carefully at what actions the channels can reinforce each other with. Good cooperation will result in optimal results. 

 

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Shannah de Ruijter
Shannah de Ruijter

About this schurq

Online Marketing Consultant

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