Non-PPC users 'setting up for failure'

13:15 11th February 2010

Digital marketing professionals have been advised to use pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns to check whether their search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy is working.

Robert Enriquez, Founder of Search Exchange, said in an article for Search Engine Journal that by using PPC, digital marketing professionals could save money in the long run.

He explained that he used PPC before finalising a strategy for an SEO campaign.

Mr Enriquez said: "PPC and SEO go hand in hand, and if you don't use PPC you're setting yourself up for failure. PPC campaigns give live impressions, and give me a quick idea if the keyword gets searched or not."

He said using PPC could enable digital marketing professionals to see if people were searching for their keywords, saving time and money waiting for the results of a more natural SEO campaign.

Keywords can still be used so a website has a presence in search engine results pages, he added.

SEO needs to adapt to the ever-changing environment of the internet in order to stay relevant, a search expert has warned.

Eric Enge, president of US-based SEO specialist Stone Temple Consulting, said in an article for Search Engine Watch that although SEO would always have a place while people used search engines, it needed to change to be useful for new methods such as local search.