Reducing Online Marketing Ad Spend with SEO

For many businesses, April marks the beginning of peak season. It’s prime time for positioning your business ahead of your local competitors. Gaining a top position on your customer’s search engine results page can be achieved a number of different ways, via search advertising (PPC) or organic search rankings via top search engine optimization work. Earned organic rankings (SEO) however, offer another (more sustainable) benefit to rank higher for a wider range of keywords, while significantly reducing ad spend or actual Cost-per-Click (CPC). The secret lies in your Quality Score.

How does SEO affect my Ad Spend (CPC)

Cost-per-click (CPC) is the amount that a company or ‘advertiser’ pays for each click on their ad. CPC, or the Maximum Bid that’s set for an individual campaign, will determine where the ad is shown and how high it will rank. Actual CPC (or what the advertiser actually pays) is determined by the following formula:

Actual CPC = (Competitor’s Ad Rank ¸ Own Quality Score) + $0.01 (see summary below).

Ad Rank is a value that determines the position of an ad on a search engine results page, usually calculated by Maximum Bid x Quality Score.

but alsNotice how Actual CPC is reduced if the company maintains a higher Quality Score? Are you ready? Here’s our free take home tip:

An individual or company’s Quality Score is the score that Google (or any other search engine) gives to your ad based on your:

 Ad clickthrough rate (CTR) compared to the average CTR of similar ads

• Relevance of your meta, title or on-page keywords (LINK)
• Quality of your landing page, website design or content
• Previous performance on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)

 Google uses modern metrics to determine your website’s online visibility. One of the key drivers of search engine rankings is ensuring that your website design or landing page offers the best user experience. This forms a core component of your Quality Score. Page experience, load speed, how long someone spends surfing your webpage (bounce rate) and whether or not they spend (conversion), all have a significant effect on your overall Quality Score. 

Maintaining a higher Quality Score than your competitors can involve some simple and easy-to-implement Search Engine Optimization techniques. SEO involves the creating and formatting of your webpage content in a way that allows Google to index and understand what your website pages are about. More importantly, keyword-optimizing each web page can help Google to know whether your website provides the answer, information or service that the internet user is searching for. We’ve created 5 Tips to a Strong SEO Strategy for you here.

Our Search Engine Optimization services help our clients create captivating and relevant content to keep customers on their website wanting to learn more. In turn, this helps drive demand and lead generation while strengthening brand awareness among shoppers who are ready to buy or wine and dine in wine country. By keeping curious users on your website for longer (thereby reducing bounce rate and increasing return visits and conversions), you are improving your Quality Score with every shopper.

Whether your success is measured by tasting room visitation, selling out your virtual tasting, increasing club subscribers or visits to your online store, well-executed SEO strategy can help increase qualified leads and reduce the total amount that you’re paying to reach them.

WSI Next Gen Marketing is Napa’s leading marketing agency. Our advertising agency not only specializes in online advertising and SEO as well as custom website design and ecommerce website integration.