Why a Total Search Approach is a Winning Marketing Strategy

Why paid and organic search are better together

Paid and organic search are both very important components of your marketing strategy but that is something you probably know already.

Being successful at search engine marketing (SEM) involves finding the right balance across channels and looking at the search results as a whole. Paid and organic bring something different to the table in terms of results and their value also very much depends on your business goals.

But what if your goal is to rank higher on Google? If your paid search and organic search teams are entirely separate departments or agencies, you are risking your chances in achieving this goal.

Read on to find out why a joint vision will make such a huge difference to your business.

A brief reminder of Total Search

In our last blog article, we provided a detailed explanation of Total Search – the new approach to search that considers all the results present in a search engine results page (SERP).

Many brands measure organic and paid search results separately. This results in different metrics and strategies for each. The Total Search concept encourages marketers to take a step back and view the entire SERP, aligning their PPC and SEO activities to create a channel-agnostic search strategy.

The Individual Strengths of SEO and Paid Search

When it comes to organic and paid search, each of channels comes with unique benefits. Here are the most important ones:

Benefits of SEO

• Boosts credibility — Whether a person’s searching for comfortable footwear for a vacation or reliable software for a business, your company makes a positive first impression when you appear at the top of organic search results.

• Attracts relevant users — Those that click through to your site organically have done so with purpose. You can inform and educate users through good content marketing.

• Produces long-term results — When you move up in the rankings by using optimised content and keywords, you get to reap long-term benefits, such as sustainable growth and improved marketing ROI.

Benefits of Paid Search

• Generates instant results — You can see results as soon as your ads go live and any updates or tweak made are immediately reflected.

• Attracts ready-to-buy users — Paid search focuses on users that are ready to buy. These users want to find a product or a service provider and may be closer to the conversion stage.

• Audience targeting — Different search engines give you the option to target specific details about your audience, like age, gender and location. This advanced targeting can help you narrow down your target audience and create very specific ads for them

When a brand’s vision switches from separating these channels into a unified goal, they are taking the first steps towards the exciting world of Total Search – the new, holistic way of looking at your search strategy.

How do SEO and paid search work together?

We can tell you one thing for sure — together is better. Search teams who are not unified are simply not ready to succeed in today’s search landscape.
In fact, they are preventing your business from harnessing the true value of search marketing.

A Total Search approach brings together under one umbrella paid and organic search, mitigating the weaknesses of each channel alone and helping you get the absolute best out of both worlds.

6 benefits of a Total Search approach:

1. Maximised SERP coverage — greater online visibility, making it more likely for users to find and interact with your website, and more opportunities within your brand’s search landscape.

2. A consistent content story and customer experience — being there for your customers in a manner that drives results for your brand.

3. Full-funnel coverage that includes every touchpoint — creating a full picture together with each channel focused on a different type of user from the funnel,

4. Better ROI — boosting the total amount of traffic to your site by targeting high-performing keywords twice: with paid and organic search.

5. Short-term wins balanced with long-term brand value — generating traffic through paid search while working on your long-term organic search strategy.

7. Insights that inform and improve both SEO and PPC efforts — using data and insight from both channels to improve overall efficiencies and performance.

Here are some examples from Chantelle Duff, Paid Performance Growth Director at Found, on how to use organic insight:

Organic Activity & Insight	Total Search Approach
Creation of granular landing pages better able to target specific user needs identified during keyword landscaping.	Better Ad Rank, reduced clicks costs and increased conversions from closer relevance match.
Ability to target users higher in the conversion funnel without click spend.	Increased awareness for brands, targeted seed list for retargeting campaigns.
Rank tracking and GSC Performance report can help identify new trends in search behaviour which may not be covered by paid campaigns.	Increased share of voice on SERPs capturing more of the available search demand.
Strong organic rankings.	High-cost high volume keywords can still be targeted regardless of click spend.

PPC insights are equally important, so make sure you have a look below as well:

PPC Insight	Total Search Approach
Keyword level conversion data from search query report.	Specific converting keywords identified and prioritised in SEO targeting efforts for greater ROI.
Best performing ad headlines, messaging and ad extensions by CTR and conversions.	Title tag and meta description messaging optimised to encourage organic clicks and conversions.
Search query report can identify shows seeing growth in consumer demand and new terms to target.	Insight to inform site architecture and landing pages to increase organic keyword coverage and individual rankings.
Auction insights can identify where competitors are appearing on our brand terms and where they aren’t.	Paid activity can be paused on terms where no competitors are showing and we own the #1 organic spot (brand, brand + generic) and click spend redeployed for additional growth.

Become a power player of Total Search

When is the right time to use paid and organic search together? In short, there is no better time than now.

By building your brand’s online presence with Total Search in mind, you can have the best of both worlds. Broaden your horizons by looking beyond isolated metrics such as CPC or organic clicks to create a cohesive strategy that leverages the strengths of both channels.

Luminr delivers on a Total Search approach to help you see and react to the full picture. It was created as the first search intelligence platform that tracks and analyses a brand’s market share across the whole of page one on Google.

Get in touch with our team to discover how we can help you own page one.