Does running Google ads help improve SEO rankings?

The topic of Google Ads and whether or not they can improve SEO rankings is one of the most widely discussed topics in the world of online marketing.

Some people believe that you will instantly secure better rankings for your website once you pay Google by purchasing their ads. Now, this is not true, at least not entirely.

Numerous different factors influence your SEO rankings. And while using Google Ads can potentially lead to better SEO rankings, there’s always more to the story. So, to answer the question, we must first dive a bit deeper into how SEO rankings work.

Ranking signals

When it comes to SEO ranking signals, they are divided into two groups – direct and indirect.

Direct Google Ranking Factors are all the factors that will directly influence your Google rankings. These are the things you can do to your website to ensure better rankings. These usually include mobile friendliness, optimised content, and technical SEO. Google’s Page Experience Update introduced new ranking factors that closer tied SEO to User Experience, with factors such as Core Web Vitals, Security and HTTPS being clearly outlined as ranking factors.

On the other hand, we have the indirect Google Ranking Factors, which correlate to Google rankings, but their influence can’t be measured as accurately. They usually include readability, meta tags and picture to text ratio.

PPC and SEO

Now that we’ve explained the different ranking factors, it’s time to move onto other ranking aspects. Both PPC and SEO have a single goal – to bring more traffic to your website.

However, the way in which these two approach the matter is quite different.

On the one hand, SEO focuses on the unpaid rankings in search results. On the other hand, PPC or pay-per-click focuses on the paid rankings in search results (i.e., the ones that rank above the top organic result and have the word “Ad” before the listing).

In other words, SEO will bring more traffic to your website but slowly and organically, while PPC has the power to attract traffic much faster.

This goes to show that both of these are equally important for businesses, but they do drive somewhat different results. 

Search engine optimisation (SEO)

The main goal of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is to improve your website as a whole to increase its visibility and bring more traffic your way.

Needless to say, the more visibility you manage to secure for your website, the more customers you can expect to gain. Search engines, such as Google and Bing, use so-called “crawlers” to analyse websites and collect information about them.

The websites that are well-optimised for SEO will automatically rank higher on the search results pages. But how can you ensure that this happens to your website?

Optimise your website

The first thing you need to ensure is that your website is well-optimised. This will include securing a stellar design, making your website mobile-friendly, ensuring optimal loading speed and implementing excellent security.

Of course, these are just some of the things you need to focus on to ensure that your website is well optimised. Since this is one of the most important aspects of proper SEO optimisation, make sure it’s well-executed.

If you don’t have the right set of skills or knowledge to do this yourself, look for professionals that offer this type of internet marketing service to help you out. 

Rank for the right keywords

Next, you’ll need to find the right keywords for your business. Ideally, the keywords you choose to use should match with the keywords consumers look up when searching for a business similar to yours. That’s why keyword research is so important.

By doing proper keyword research, you’ll easily determine which keywords you should rank for that will bring more traffic your way.

Pay attention to your content

In the world of online marketing, content is king. One of the ways consumers will interact with your business is through the content you produce. That’s why you need to make sure that your content is relevant and useful for your audience.

Additionally, it needs to be original, unique and informative. By creating quality content, you’ll provide your audience with more value and establish yourself as an industry professional.

Stay up to date

Do know that optimising your website and securing everything we’ve mentioned earlier is not a one-and-done type of thing. Instead, you’ll need to monitor your progress constantly and ensure you stay up to date with all the latest trends in the industry.

Pay-per-click (PPC)

PPC is an internet marketing model that is also used to boost traffic. Here, advertisers have to pay a fee every time one of their ads is clicked on. As such, this method allows advertisers to “buy” website visitors instead of trying to reach them organically.

Being the most popular PPC advertising system globally, Google Ads enables marketers to advertise their ventures on all Google properties.

How does it work?

In order to actually see results from your Google Ads efforts, you need to know how to create a viable strategy.

Of course, you’ll need to closely monitor all of your campaigns to ensure that they continue to be effective. On top of that, you’ll need to create a designated marketing budget to support this marketing strategy.

Next, you’ll need to do keyword research once more and see which keywords to rank for. However, here you’ll also need to think about the so-called negative keywords. These are all of the non-converting terms that can improve your campaign’s relevancy.

Similarities with SEO

Just like in SEO, PPC has certain rules and standards that need to be met to ensure you’re doing it right.

Keyword relevance, landing page quality and creativity are just some of the most important factors to consider. Optimizing title tags, meta descriptions and URLs is also of vital importance.

What does all of this mean?

Now that we’ve explored both sides of internet marketing, it’s time to see how relevant they are to each other. So, to briefly answer the question, yes, running Google Ads can help improve SEO rankings. However, many believe that to be the most important, and it’s simply a misconception.

You see, the way in which running a Google Ads campaign may help improve your SEO rankings is through overall website optimisation. In order to ensure that you’ve done both SEO and PPC right, you’ll need to optimise your website as a whole.

Finally, it’s important to mention once more: the fact that a business is paying Google for their Google Ads service in no way directly influences its SEO rankings.

There were many instances where businesses paid for Google Ads and still didn’t manage to reach success simply because they didn’t do all that needed to be done. So, don’t mistakenly believe that just because you’re paying for Google Ads, you’ll get viable results with zero engagement on your part.

Want help with your digital strategy?

Whether you want help with your SEO strategy, or you need PPC management for your campaigns, speak to us. At MintTwist our teams are experienced and will collaborate with you to develop effective marketing campaigns that drive the best results.