People have been going bananas recently about Google’s Quality Score and how it affects their campaigns. I am going to agree with most articles out there and say the buzz around it is a little much. And some people are getting the wrong information. So here is the DL on Quality Score in 10 seconds:

It takes into account the relevance of the keywords in your ad group, the ad, and the landing page in a campaign. The closer related they are the better. Brad Geddes has a good list of what is known as parts of the quality score.

“The reality of the quality score is actually quite simple … Essentially, it’s a measure of trust – difficult (but not impossible) to manipulate – and it causes far too many people to run around in circles chasing their tails.”
Dave Collins

So a friend asked on Twitter if SEO could improve PPC quality score. Yes. Like everything else in Internet Marketing, SEO and PPC are very closely related and can impact the other. Just like PPC rankings can increase the trust of a natural ranking, SEO principles can help improve PPC quality scores (if they are in need of help).

In SEO there is a focus on keywords and relevance of pages to popular keywords. Looking at quality score, if your landing page isn’t being viewed by Google as relevant, you can work on SEO elements like content, title, and meta tags to make the page more relevant. Google’s Quality Score algorithm is becoming much like their natural algorithm, both focused on relevancy using popularity (CTR) and keyword similarity. Playing the game means building pages for your searchers/clients. The better they like it, the more relevant it is, and the less you will pay for the traffic you get.

So SEO and PPC – go out to lunch, become friends, swap stories, and share information. It’s amazing what you can learn from each other and how this information can make your individual campaigns work much more efficiently.

1.) You could write one here
2.) You could write one there
3.) You could write one anywhere
4.) You could write one in a house
5.) You could write one with a mouse
6.) You could write one in a box
7.) You could write one with a fox
8.) You could write one in a car
9.) You could write one in the dark
10.) You could write one in a tree
11.) You could write one on a train
12.) You could write one in the rain
13.) You could write one with a goat
14.) You could write one on a boat

After reviewing why you should be paying for traffic rather than just relying on organic results, the team at New Edge Media want to take it a step further. One of the reasons to use paid search was to balance your online campaigns. But we are sure people (and clients) want to know how a paid search campaign can improve the performance of an organic campaign? Basically how do they balance each other … well here we go, how to use PPC for SEO purposes.

Keyword Research

There are a plethora of tools available to SEOs when it comes to keyword research. Google made us all happy when they added numbers to the AdWords Keyword Tool. But none of that is worth a thing without knowing what actually converts visitors. There are keywords that are traffic builders but not converters. Running a paid search campaign allows you to see within the first few months exactly which words convert to your company’s end result, be it sales or form fills. That allows your SEO team to see which keywords they should be optimizing for before the others in their campaigns. Internet marketing is and should be about conversion first, not traffic.

Share of Market

Your analytics program will only let you see the traffic that is hitting your site. There is no way with pure SEO tools to see total market share. Even the numbers that Google publishes are spot on. Really, none can be, all numbers are inherently just a bit off, but running a PPC campaign can give you a better idea of how many people are searching for the products you offer. Using that number and the number of clicks, paid and natural to that keyword for a certain time period can give you a good idea of market share. One metric that all marketing and business people understand.

Conversion and Trust

There has been a large amount of research done to prove that running paid search along side naturally high ranking keywords results in not only a higher click through rate on the organic side, but also increases conversion rates. This is because searchers trust the business that is ranking organically and paying for advertising, it’s a sign of relevance and stability.

The take away here is that for most companies the balance is what you should be going for. Use all sides of marketing to do your best. There is no one set combination of mediums that will work best for you because it’s different for everyone. But for the 80% of companies out there that paid search works for, utilize it for your SEO campaigns too. Just as social works to increase SEO, paid search impacts it too.

Earlier this year I was at one of the IM Charity Events, as the evening reached one of its loudest moments I turned to a friend and said “this is what Twitter would sound like if you could actually hear everyone.” Just a sea of voices with crashing tidal waves of verbal volume and it becomes almost impossible to hear one individual conversation.

The sad thing is that this can happen on Twitter even if it is muted text. You start out with pure intentions of connecting with people, enjoying the back and forth with the people you follow and who follow you. Then before you know it you have hundreds following you. You want to be nice and follow them back, so you do. Then you find more and more new interesting people to follow. It turns into a vicious cycle. I’m speaking to the personal enjoyment and experience on Twitter. Not the pimp out your social media side of things. More to the “I’m stuck at the airport but it’s ok because I have a whole group of people to chat with in the palm of my hand” part of Twitter.

Many different tools have come out to help you split, sort, group and sauté your Twitter feeds. You can use TweepBeep, Twitter Search and a voodoo woman named Phyllis, and yet you still miss replies or interesting conversation. So my question is to what end does quantity begin to dilute the quality?

Trying to gain back the quality we all feel in love with can be tricky. You can send out an update that you are cutting back your follow list. Remove those who do not join into conversations, those who provide no information or entertainment factors. Now you run the risk of hurting feelings as you remove people. Or for those keeping count heaven forbid you lose cool points as your own follower count drops.

I am uncertain how one goes about recapturing the romance with Twitter. Can you go back? I truly respect those who have prevailed at keeping theirs pure and simple. I myself did not and I’m now trying to following over 300 people but I have 1000+ unread items in my Google Reader so I apparently over do it in other areas as well.

Why pay for search traffic when organic is free? Fun Edition.

1. Everything is better when you pay for it … just laugh.
2. You get highlighted! It’s like glitter for search.
3. Satisfies your screaming boss  - “I WANT IT NOW!”
4. Messing with your competitor’s head by running an ad with their name on it is fun. (I’m kidding!)
5. You make more money in paid search … (Again, I’m kidding people, see the “fun edition thing up there? KTHXBAI)

Why pay for search traffic when organic is free? Real Answers Edition.

1. It’s all about the blend … you can’t run a marketing campaign online without balance.
2. Paid search provides immediate results and can be run while SEO objectives are being pushed.
3. You can’t rank #1 on EVERYTHING.
4. Your CEO prefers to see tangible results and reports, might as well give it to him now while your kick ass SEO is working his/her magic. Your CEO will thank you later.
5. Testing is easier on a paid campaign. What you learn there can be used in every other marketing area.

So basically what it comes down to is that paid search is not any better than organic and organic is not better than paid search. Both sides have to be used in conjunction with the other and the rest of the company marketing objectives. You should be paying for traffic to learn searcher intent. That can be used to modify link anchors, navigation, and other integral parts of the optimization equation.

Now can’t we all just get along???