Does Running Google Ads Help Improve SEO Rankings?

Ever since pay-per-click advertising (PPC) became a thing on Google, there have been rumors that Google Ads might help businesses in search engine optimization (SEO). But is this true?

Well, the answer is a bit complicated. It’s both yes and no. So, what does that mean?

Let’s discuss this in further detail.

• Why running Google Ads won’t help in SEO 

The most convincing argument that explains why running PPC won’t influence your SEO strategy is because Google has officially said so.

You see, SEO and Google Ads are intended to be two different methods of driving traffic to your website. These methods are not meant to have anything to do with one another.

With that said, let’s take a look at how they work.

• SEO

SEO focuses on gathering organic traffic, meaning that Google will evaluate your website based on many ranking factors, which may or may not place you higher on the search engine results page.

Generally, these ranking factors evaluate websites based on user experience indicators, like page views, bounce rate, dwell time, etc.

In other words, a user-friendly website means a better ranking on Google and more organic traffic. Companies similar to a custom web development company, build a professional website for your company and make sure it’s user-friendly and has a high-quality performance for customers.

• Google Ads

On the other hand, Google Ads is an advertising solution that allows businesses to bid to show up at the top of the search engine results.

As a rule of thumb, the more you are willing to pay for a website visitor, the better the odds of your website ranking first.

However, as opposed to SEO, Google Ads doesn’t require you to tweak your website to be more user-friendly. You only need to have money. That’s exactly why Google Ads can’t directly influence SEO. It just wouldn’t be fair.

Gaining more organic traffic than other websites that make an effort to improve their user experience just because you pay more would ruin the entire point of SEO.

Now that we’ve debunked this myth, how did it become a thing in the first place? Well, it’s most likely because of common misconceptions and coincidences.

When it comes to coincidences, one of the most common things that lead people to think that Google Ads directly impacts SEO is Google’s updates.

You see, besides a few major updates that roll out every year, Google releases, on average, three smaller updates daily, most of which are unannounced. Some of these updates usually come in the form of small SEO tweaks.

So, when someone stops their Google Ads campaign and notices that their rankings went down, they’ll interpret that PPC directly influences SEO, not knowing that the updates are actually to blame.

Another common reason that might explain why people think that SEO and Google Ads go hand-in-hand is that they simply misinterpret their analytics.

Google Analytics can be quite tricky to figure out, especially if you’re new to the industry.

You see, some tracking platforms treat traffic that comes from PPC and SEO as being the same thing, unless specifically filtered, leading to this misconception as a result.

Now that we’ve seen why Google Ads cannot directly impact your SEO performance, there are still some indirect effects that you may notice. Let’s take a look at some of them.

• How Google Ads can influence SEO 
• PPC creates brand awareness 

Even if a user enters your website via a PPC ad and leaves it shortly after or simply sees your website on the SERP, your ad has still generated brand awareness

So, whenever users search for something relevant in the future, they’ll most likely click on your organic result over your competitors.

That’s because they’ll remember your business from their past interaction, and as users get more familiar with your business, they will be more likely to engage with you.

In other words, brand awareness generates more traffic, so talking with a digital branding company might be a good idea.

• PPC ads allow you to occupy more space in the SERPs 

Here’s the thing: if you direct your marketing efforts both towards PPC and SEO, you’ll potentially end up appearing twice on the search engine results page.

As we’ve previously mentioned, advertisements will appear right above organic results. And if you’ve been doing SEO as well, chances are that your organic result will appear right beneath your ad. So, what does that mean?

Well, it increases the chances of getting users to click on one of your listings, be it the ad or the organic result. That happens because users will become more inclined to click on your website if it appears twice on the same page.

So that said, do your web research for PPC Companies worldwide that generate high-quality leads via paid ads, and increase the chances of getting users to click.

• PPC helps you discover better organic keywords

Both SEO and PPC rely on keyword research, meaning that you must target the right keywords to drive as much traffic as possible to your website. However, there’s still a difference between these two.

SEO cannot bring you immediate results, whereas PPC can. With that said, you can use the keyword data that you’ve gathered from your PPC campaign and apply it to your SEO strategy.

• PPC ads help you reach a local audience

In the US alone, around 56% of users conduct local searches using mobile devices. So what does that mean? Well, due to the smaller screen sizes, PPC ads will fill the majority of your screen.

As a result, the first thing a user sees for a local search will be your ad, ultimately improving the odds of getting the user to click through.

However, if the user decides to skip your PPC, he will still stumble upon your listing on Google My Business. If he decides to skip on that as well, the user might still see your organic search results

You’ll get more exposure and, with that, a high possibility of getting the user to click on your website.

• Google Ads may help in link building 

And finally, Google Ads can help you in gaining more backlinks. As we’ve previously mentioned, PPC ads will earn you more exposure. So what does this have to do with link building?

If you’re creating a blog post that focuses on statistics, other content creators may search for the same stats you have used.

These users are not usually picky when it comes to choosing a site on the search engine results page. They will most likely click on the first site they see.

So, if your website does not rank high in the organic listing, but it shows up at the top of the SERPs due to Google Ads, chances are that users might choose your website over the others, linking back to it as a result.

• Final Words 

All in all, Google Ads cannot have a direct impact on SEO.

However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t run PPC ads alongside your SEO campaign.

In fact, due to the indirect effects we mentioned above, doing PPC and SEO at the same time might get you more bang for your buck.

Author bio:- Tomas is a digital marketing specialist and a freelance blogger. His work is focusing on new web tech trends and digital voice distribution across different channels.

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