Once everyone from your SEO and PPC teams has provided answers, it will be easy to create the perfect roadmap of keywords for each team.<\/p>\n
An Example Of How To Overcome Keyword Overlap In SEO & PPC<\/h3>\n
Sometimes, it\u2019s easier to learn by example, so let\u2019s travel through a real marketing problem that we had to solve.<\/p>\n
In this instance, a grocery retail client had a simple yet very common problem<\/strong>: a high dependency on branded and non-branded terms in their paid campaigns.<\/p>\n The client\u2019s objective<\/strong> was to leverage their SEO efforts in order to reduce exposure on paid channels.<\/p>\n The hypothesis<\/strong> was that if you target key PPC terms you could easily get organic visibility<\/a> for, you could stop bidding on them and consequently stop cannibalizing SEO through paid search.<\/p>\n It is worth stating that, in our case, there was a huge dependency on branded terms. As you may have experienced, spending on PPC keywords for which you have good organic rankings can make good business sense to protect coverage on a more crowded SERP.<\/p>\n In order to illustrate it in a very simplistic manner, this is how PPC keyword targeting versus SEO would normally be set:<\/p>\n The SEO Strategy<\/strong><\/p>\n We try to define specific terms (AKA: chunky middle, even long tail), and we move towards broader terms (AKA: Generics), thus grouping many keywords in buckets (groups in SEOmonitor).<\/p>\n Ex.: Wooden toy kitchen: Global Search Volume 11.4K<\/p>\n The PPC Strategy<\/strong><\/p>\n We try to define broader terms (AKA: broad match), and we move towards specific terms (AKA: exact match), thus grouping many keywords in buckets (AdGroups).<\/p>\n Ex.: Wooden toys OR Toys: Global Search Volume 53.5K<\/p>\n The Result<\/strong><\/p>\n You can see that one will be more specific (PPC) over time, whilst the other is specific from day one but relies on getting good visibility in order to harness any impact.<\/p>\n The next thing to uncover is what happens when you have good visibility (rankings)<\/a> for it.<\/p>\n These steps are the real, proven pathways to how the Estudio34 team combined SEO and PPC data to improve their search visibility while optimizing budgets for both channels.<\/p>\n Once you\u2019ve made it to this method, you and your PPC team should be actively communicating and sharing data.<\/p>\n Without actively collaborating with your PPC team, you might not even be aware of cannibalization issues<\/a>.<\/p>\n In this context, cannibalization refers to SEO and PPC targeting the same keywords and competing for traffic instead of being leveraged together. When that happens, search results might include your own competing landing pages, which can lead to lower conversions or dispersed traffic.<\/p>\n Where Does Cannibalization Often Occur?<\/strong><\/p>\n PPC teams might bid on terms without knowing the SEO side. Or SEO professionals might inherit this structure from day one without realizing it\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n Because the point of this strategy is to benefit cross-channel through keyword overlap, we started the analysis from paid keywords to then cross-reference with SEO data.<\/p>\n How We Stopped SEO & PPC Keyword Cannibalization<\/strong><\/p>\n First, we pulled a list of PPC terms that were generating clicks and no conversions over a period of three months \u2013 this allows you to group them by search queries (SQR report).<\/p>\n Note that the timeframe may differ from business to business due to the volume of data and actual spending in the given period. You should test with date ranges to see how many terms meet the criteria. You don\u2019t want to be swamped in rows of data, but rather have actionable and measurable options.<\/p>\n To solve the \u201cnot provided\u201d issue and get conversion data at the keyword level, our team at Estudio34 leveraged SEOmonitor\u2019s Organic Traffic module<\/a>. SEOmonitor brings all the keyword data from Search Console enriched with sessions and conversions from Analytics by using their common ground: the landing page.<\/p>\n Once we had the hit list from the PPC team, we uploaded these to the rank tracker<\/a> as new keywords.<\/p>\n We recommend doing this in a separate group, mainly because the visibility for the group can be measured and excluded from potential forecasts if needed.<\/p>\n Next, it was time to identify overlaps.<\/p>\n For our case, we looked at keywords in position 3 or above.<\/p>\n We did it manually as we didn\u2019t want new terms to be added unless we said so, but in SEOmonitor, you can set smart groups<\/a>, meaning that anything that falls into your filtering option will be automatically added and updated.<\/p>\n We continued our filtering in SEOmonitor\u2019s rank tracker so as to leave out keywords that also have an ad showing for them.<\/p>\n Theoretically, this check is unnecessary because we pulled out the terms from PPC campaigns.<\/p>\n However, it\u2019s good to know in case you need to do it the other way around. Bear in mind that certain terms may not be picked up in some instances as it depends on your aggressive bidding and when the tool snapshots the SERPs.<\/p>\n Over time, you\u2019ll also get Seasonality, and SERP Features Visibility<\/a> details.<\/p>\n These are incredibly useful because whatever terms you decide to test may well have no impact if, seasonally speaking, they are not relevant.<\/p>\n Start by defining the landing page<\/a> for which a certain query ranks.<\/p>\n The landing page will help determine how much traffic was coming to it organically and thus if it increases or decreases. Likewise, we can assess conversions that may have been generated from that landing page. Note that we are making concessions, as there are cases where a landing page may be serving the discovery phase purely, so conversions may not affect the overall result.<\/p>\n Now, you can start testing.<\/p>\n You may be tempted to pause campaigns to see the impact on organic traffic. However, this is not advised, mainly because you could be affecting your top line. How you go about it can help mitigate any risk associated with revenue loss.<\/p>\n Target individual keyword testing by:<\/strong><\/p>\n Because we have the organic traffic to the ranking URL, we have a snapshot of the before and after effects of negatively excluding keywords from PPC campaigns.<\/p>\n Compare the following for the timeframe tested versus the previous period: <\/strong><\/p>\n Look for patterns like:<\/strong><\/p>\n What to do based on the previous patterns:<\/strong><\/p>\n Retain the excluded terms if all three instances are met positively \u2013 meaning:<\/p>\n If there are what-ifs involved and the client has concerns, here\u2019s what to do:<\/strong><\/p>\n Tackle concerns with an actual agreed-upon action plan.<\/p>\n As a means of mitigating potential sales loss, the first question to ask is if SEO traffic converts worse than when targeting the query on paid. Our recommended action was to revert back to that term and dig into specifics: Are the landing pages the exact same? What can be taken from the paid campaign to improve UX on the SEO page?<\/p>\n This is where the second benefit of this activity comes to play: leveraging the on-page optimization and clear targeting of a landing page used in PPC to target an SEO term and landing page, as follows:<\/p>\n With this client, we learned that the best results came from switching the exact terms that included the brand. Mainly because they had a competitive cost and good conversion rates.<\/p>\n With generic terms, the results were a mixed bag. Yet it\u2019s reasonable to state that on expensive terms, if you have good SEO, it will be an almost certain win.<\/p>\n For this client, we targeted a test with 1,300 terms with an average cost per click of 0.12 euros. Generating 20,000 clicks over the two weeks tested saved around 4,800 euros per month.<\/p>\n As we saw from Smith and the team at Estudio34, taking an integrated approach to SEO and PPC might be useful for data-driven experiments and cutting waste on both channels through:<\/p>\nStep 3: Try The Estudio34 Method<\/h2>\n
Step 3.1: Identify Where & How Cannibalization Occurs<\/h3>\n
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![\"How](\"https:\/\/marketingnewsbox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/how-to-combine-seo-ppc-keyword-strategies-for-more-effective-roi-via-sejournal-seomonitor.png\")
Image by Estudio34 using SEOmonitor.com\u2019s keyword groups, November 2022<\/span><\/div>\n<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\nStep 3.2: Filter Out Search Terms That Rank In The Top 3<\/h3>\n
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![\"How](\"https:\/\/marketingnewsbox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/how-to-combine-seo-ppc-keyword-strategies-for-more-effective-roi-via-sejournal-seomonitor-1.png\")
Image by Estudio34 using SEOmonitor.com\u2019s advanced filters and Smart groups, November 2022<\/span><\/div>\n<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\nStep 3.3: Filter Out Keywords With Ads<\/h3>\n
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![\"How](\"https:\/\/marketingnewsbox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/how-to-combine-seo-ppc-keyword-strategies-for-more-effective-roi-via-sejournal-seomonitor-2.png\")
Image by Estudio34 using SEOmonitor.com\u2019s advanced filters, November 2022<\/span><\/div>\n<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\n\n
![\"How](\"https:\/\/marketingnewsbox.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/how-to-combine-seo-ppc-keyword-strategies-for-more-effective-roi-via-sejournal-seomonitor-3.png\")
Image by Estudio34 using SEOmonitor.com\u2019s search and SERP data, November 2022<\/span><\/div>\n<\/dt>\n<\/dl>\nStep 3.4: Test Your New Keywords<\/h3>\n
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Step 3.5: Evaluate The Results<\/h3>\n
SEOmonitor Can Help You Zero-In On SEO Performance<\/h2>\n
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