How to Boost ROI for Paid and Organic Campaigns with BrightEdge

The evidence is clear: paid and organic search complement one other very well, with each driving the performance of the other.

Findings from a 2012 research report by Google showed strong organic search results boosted click-through rates (CTR) for the paid (PPC) ads displayed on the same search engine results page (SERP). The following year, a second Google study reinforced their initial findings , showing that the top three organic search listings drove a 64 percent increase in CTR for paid ads appearing on the same SERP.

In addition, one SEO industry study found organic search click-through rates were bolstered when PPC ads were shown alongside them in the SERPs.

BrightEdge CEO Jim Yu recently discussed his synergy between organic SEO and PPC in detail in his Search Engine Land column. You can also see a review of additional paid content syndication options in this blog post.

While the BrightEdge platform was designed primarily for organic SEO and content performance marketing, it was also built with enterprise-level brands in mind. This means we encourage a holistic approach to digital marketing.

To that end, in this post we’ll discuss how to leverage the BrightEdge platform for paid search.

Find High-Ranking Keywords to Leverage for Paid Search

Tapping into the power of the BrightEdge platform, you can easily find high-ranking keywords to leverage for your paid search campaigns with this simple 4-step process:

• Click on the “Reports” tab.
• Select “All Keywords” for the group of keyword terms you are targeting, or select the appropriate keyword group.

• Select the filter for keywords “Ranked on Page 1.”
• Click the top of the rank column to sort keywords by rank order:

You’ll want to select those keywords that consistently rank high for your PPC campaigns.

Find Low-Ranking Keywords to Leverage for Paid Search

You might want to include low-ranking (less competitive) keywords that have a relatively high search volume when running a cost-effective paid search campaign.

As with the Steps 1 and 2 above, you’ll first click on the “Reports” tab and select “All Keywords,” or select the appropriate keyword group.

For Step 3, select the filter for keywords “Ranked on Page 4 to 10,” and for step 4, click to top of the “Search Volume” column to order the keyword data from highest to lowest search volume:

In this case, you’ll want to select those keywords with a relatively low ranking yet high search volume to maximize the organic traffic to your site.

Using the BrightEdge Data Cube for Additional Research

The BrightEdge Data Cube is a massive repository of keyword data with over 2 billion pieces of information. Our Data Cube can give you insights into the performance of your website in terms of the keywords for which it is ranking and their corresponding search volumes, as well as competitive insights for paid campaigns.

For your own site , follow these three simple steps:

1. Click on the “Analysis” tab, “Data Cube” and enter your base URL (website address).
2. Click on the top of the “Rank” tab to retrieve your highest and lowest ranking keywords.
3. Click on the top of the “Search Volume” column to rank the order of your keywords from the highest to the lowest monthly search volume.

Bonus Tips:

• Select keywords that have a high search volume to maximize the traffic to your site.
• Use the custom filters to search for targeted keyword terms, remove brand terms or other custom criteria.

To find competitor keywords for paid campaigns, take these three steps:

1. Click on the “Analysis” tab, “Data Cube” and enter your competitor’s base URL (or a category URL if you are focusing on certain product areas.) This will reveal your competitor’s top-ranking keywords.
2. Create a custom filter to find competitor keywords ranking higher than 4, and with a search volume over X,XXX. You can also use custom filters to remove brand terms or non-relevant keywords.
3. Download CSV (spreadsheet) – hover over the top right side for export icons.

As with your own site’s keyword analysis, you’ll want to select keywords with a high search volume and use custom filters to search for targeted keyword terms, or other custom criteria. For competitive analysis, you’ll also want to filter out your competitor’s brand terms.

Track Progress

Finally, you can use BrightEdge to monitor the progress of your paid search campaign by building a “paid vs. organic optimization” dashboard in BrightEdge.

Go to the “Dashboards” tab and add reports for:

• Top keywords with no organic visibility.
• Top keywords with strong organic visibility.
• Top keywords for which your competitors are ranking.

You can configure the dashboard to automatically email these reports to you at a given time interval, such as weekly or monthly.

With the massive repository of data available to your search teams in the Data Cube, your brand can run paid search campaigns that align with your SEO program.

By employing complementary channels, marketers can maximize the overall performance and cost-effectiveness of their search engine marketing strategies.

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