How Google AdWords (Paid Ads) Affect Organic Rankings?

“Look at this site, it has just come up on an organic ranking. It might be using paid searches to achieve organic results”

It is how SEOs react to competitors when they fail to understand how and when paid searches boost organic rankings of sites the ads represent. There is little doubt that paid searches help in achieving organic ranking but it would be an injustice to SEO to give all the credit to paid ads.

Paid ads and organic listing have many things in common but it is difficult to say to what extent a paid search can affect the organic listing of a site/brand.

Here we’ll discuss the functioning of paid ads and try relating their results to the organic listing of sites/businesses. Also, we’ll discuss whether SEOs should rely on paid searches to get organic results. If yes, then to what extent SEOs should invest in paid ads.

Visibility of paid ads is likely to boost clicks on organic listings

If you see an advertisement for a product, its impression on your mind could lead you to click on an organic listing for that product. It is instantaneous because simultaneous viewing of ad and organic listing would convince you to click on the organic listing.

Let’s see how it happens

You are in New South Wales, Australia and you search whale watching. The results would show the ads as well as organic listing for the whale tours available in the vicinity. This is the time when simultaneous viewing of an ad and an organic listing would prompt you to click on the organic listing.

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The above example shows that bidding on branded keywords could yield good results but it neither establishes a connection between paid ads and organic listing nor encourages the SEOs to rely more on paid ads for targeted traffic.

Exposure to a website through paid ads increases engagement

If you see an ad of a brand again and again, the brand would get printed in your memory and when you see it in the organic listing, you would find it familiar and this familiarity would prompt you to click on the organic listing to find more information about the brand.

The math is – higher click-through-rate and high conversion rate boost website ranking. If you have clicked on a paid ad and also on the organic listing of the brand the ad represents, you are more likely to get engaged with that brand, if you see it in the organic listing. Depending on your past experience of interacting with that brand, you will engage with the brand.

In the case of a new website/brand, you are less likely to get engaged with that site/company. Here it can be said that prior experience of paid ads is likely to boost the organic ranking of websites/brands.

Paid searches rule certain queries

A paid search for a product can boost the click-through-rate for the website that is offering that product. This contrary to the findings – paid searches get 2% to 3% of all clicks and organic listings get 47% to 57% of all clicks.

For example, if you search a floor lamp on Google, you are likely to see paid ads with glossy pictures of lights. You will find white lighting, chrome lighting, colourful lighting and much more. The pictures of those products would hold your attention and prevent you from scrolling down to organic listing. If you do the math, your calculation would be 25% to 50% clicks going to those images that are paid searches. Here it can be said that bidding on certain queries certainly boost CTR and the organic traffic.

Engaging paid ads increase organic traffic

You see many paid ads but you click into the ads that you find engaging. For example, you see an ad and find it interesting enough to get engaged like participating in a contest, signing up for free passes for a concert, giving your opinion on a popular product, sharing a video on social media or any other activity. These activities would directly or indirectly help the site the ad represents.

Running paid ads with compelling content directly linked to the site/business the ads represent has a very strong impact on the organic listing of that website/brand. Here you can that SEOs should try taking advantage of paid ads to boost the organic ranking of websites they optimize.

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Paid searches have the power to affect the broader market

It is related to the change of searches related to a market. You see a market where there are no paid searches; no one is bidding for paid results but it doesn’t mean that there would be no searches in the future.

Lack of paid searches creates a vacuum that can attract creative marketers to take advantage of the free space. For example, take the insurance sector. There was a time when no one was searching for a discount in insurance. But today there are many insurance companies and agents attracting potential buyers with discount offers.

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If you are targeting a market where there are no paid searches, you are likely to face tough competition from creative marketers in the future. Entry of the paid searches could even turn the targeted market upside down and null all your efforts to get organic ranking.

Conclusion

We found that investing in paid ads could yield exciting results. Also, we found that there are certain queries where paid ads can have a deep and lasting impact on organic listings. We neither accept nor reject the idea of investing in paid ads to get help in achieving organic rankings. But we believe on factors like market and use engagement to make an opinion on the use of paid ads in SEO.

We are an experienced company doing PPC for a long time. We’ve worked for big brands as well as for small and medium-size sites/businesses. We understand how, when and where paid ads can help in organic listings. If you’re looking for a partner to boost your presence in paid searches, we can help in achieving the goal.  

Source : https://moz.com/blog/how-google-adwords-ppc-affects-organic-results