Many marketers view SEO and PPC as separate disciplines, but in reality, they share many similarities and can work together to drive better results. Both strategies aim to increase the visibility of your content, services, or products in search engine results. As performance marketers, we can use key SEO techniques to boost the effectiveness of our campaigns. How?
What is SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a collection of techniques and best practices designed to improve a website’s organic ranking in search engine results. Securing a top spot on the first page can significantly boost traffic to your site, leading to increased engagement and conversions. While Google dominates the search engine landscape, SEO strategies also apply to other platforms like Bing and even marketplaces where users actively search for products.
While SEO is no longer just about keyword research and optimization, it remains at its core. This means you need to identify the search queries people enter into Google when looking for a product or service to buy.
Why use SEO techniques?
The main reason is that SEO creates synergy across different channels:
- Your organic traffic (from search engines and unpaid product promotions) will increase
- PPC algorithms will receive better data, improving campaign performance
- Any optimizations you make will also enhance visibility on comparison sites and marketplaces
It’s a win-win strategy! Let’s now take a look at some steps you can implement.
1/ Optimize product information based on what people search for
Keyword research will provide valuable insights that you can use in your feed management strategies. Through this research, you identify popular search terms — words and phrases people often use, not only on Google but also on marketplaces and price comparison engines, to find the products they need.
Do this:
- Do keyword research. You can search for specific keywords on platforms such as Ahrefs or SEMrush, but even Google Ads' Keyword Planner can do the trick. Alternatively, you can conduct a full-scale analysis of what people are searching for when discovering your product. Valuable insights can be exported from Google Ads or Search Console.
- Identify keywords with the highest search volume. Don't forget about variations as well; the same thing can be called by different names. While one might be more popular, the other could have less competition.
- Implement it in your product names, titles and descriptions. Most site search algorithms take the title (product name) and text content (description) as the main signals to provide better order in results.
Example: If your keyword analysis shows high traffic for the terms "noise-canceling headphones" and "wireless headphones," you can use them like this:
Before: Sony Headphones
After: Sony Wireless Noise-Canceling Headphones
This small change makes the product more searchable and relevant to what customers are looking for.
Some advanced tips:
- Avoid unnecessary details like product IDs or ISBNs. Since product titles have character limits, prioritize important keywords.
- Avoid repetitive content. Search engines favor unique titles and descriptions, and duplication can hurt performance.
- Optimize for long-tail keywords. These are specific keyword phrases that may have lower search volume but higher conversion potential.
2/ Structured data markup to improve visibility
Structured data (schema markup) helps search engines understand your product details and display rich snippets—such as ratings, price, and availability. This improves visibility and click-through rates.
Why use structured data?
- Boosts clicks: Rich snippets make your product stand out.
- Improves search ranking: Helps search engines categorize your product.
- Enhances marketplace listings: Optimizes how products appear on Google Shopping and other platforms.
Example of structured data (JSON-LD)
<script type="application/ld+json">
{
"@context": "https://schema.org/",
"@type": "Product",
"name": "Sony Wireless Noise-Canceling Headphones",
"offers": { "@type": "Offer", "price": "199.99", "priceCurrency": "USD" }
}
</script>
How to implement?
- Generate Schema Markup – Use tools like Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper or Schema.org.
- Add it to your website – Insert the JSON-LD code into the <head> section or before the closing </body> tag of your product pages.
- Test it – Use Google’s Rich Results Test to check for errors.
3/ Page load speed matters a lot
This is an important discipline which is often mistaken to be important only for SEO. But it is actually very important to PPC as well and very vital to your overall site conversion rate.
Just check these case studies:
Google Chrome offers a useful tool in the console called Lighthouse, which you can use to measure your page's loading speed. It is essentially a similar tool to Pagespeed Insights. Use either of these.
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