How to Sync Your Marketing With SEO for the Best Results

SEO produces the best results when it’s not treated as an individual silo. Instead, consider SEO as a powerful ally to your marketing initiatives, one that supports the customer journey and increases the impact of paid advertising, social media and content marketing.

In this article, I’ll cover ways you can sync SEO and marketing:

• SEO and the Customer Journey
• Integrate SEO with Paid Advertising
• Marry SEO and Social
• Sync SEO with Content Marketing
• Final Thoughts
• FAQ: How can aligning SEO and marketing initiatives improve visibility in the search results and paid advertising returns?

SEO and the Customer Journey

Are you aware that SEO plays an integral part in supporting the customer journey? Understanding this makes it easy to incorporate SEO as part of your core marketing function.

Matching your SEO to precisely where a user is in the customer journey gives you much better odds of ranking for the right keywords. Why? Because your customers are on a journey that spans much more than just a singular moment or event.

They’re constantly searching, not just in some predefined “I need something right now” way, but as a part of their normal, everyday life. And, if we’re talking about them on a pathway to purchasing, then they’re doing a whole lot of searching along the way.

Here are some ways SEO supports the customer journey:

Awareness phase: The first step of the customer journey is seeking answers, and your job is to get noticed as a potential solution. In SEO, that means appearing in the top search results. Emarketer indicates that search engines are the second-most popular channel to start an online shopping journey. Potential customers won’t choose you if they can’t find you.

Consideration phase: Now that potential customers know you exist, it’s time to build trust and guide them toward choosing you over the competition. This phase is all about proving your value and addressing their needs through things like a high-quality content strategy. SEO siloing proves to be effective here.

Decision-making phase: Your potential customers are ready to decide. You can make their decision easier with things like decision-making tools hosted on your site and social proof through reviews and testimonials. You can even mark up your reviews so they appear right in the search results.

Now that we’ve covered this foundational concept, let’s look closer at some of the strategies that can further help you align your marketing goals with your SEO strategy.

Integrate SEO with Paid Advertising

Paid advertising excels at delivering quick wins. SEO builds long-term value.

A whole-SERP strategy maximizes your visibility in the search results. This includes paid search and organic listings.

By leveraging both, you can eventually lower your paid search budget as SEO works to put your brand front and center in the search results.

So how can you do this successfully? Here are some tips:

Use PPC data to inform SEO. Use insights from paid campaigns to identify which keywords drive conversions and incorporate those into your SEO strategy.

Bet on branded keywords. Bidding on branded keywords is good practice in PPC. Simultaneously, you can optimize organic content for these branded terms to occupy both the paid and organic spots in the SERP.

Use ad copy insights to enhance organic meta tags. PPC ads include tightly crafted copy designed to convert. Take the best-performing messages and incorporate them into your meta titles and descriptions for organic pages. For example, if an ad for winter jackets drives high CTRs, use a similar message in the meta tags for a winter jackets category page. While meta titles and descriptions have been controversial in recent years (see here and here) they still remain a best practice.

Promote informational content using PPC. PPC can give your guides, blogs or educational content a visibility boost. Content Marketing Institute (CMI) found that 64% of B2B marketers distribute content through PPC advertising.

Target high-value keywords. High-value keywords are highly competitive and hard to organically rank for. Use paid ads to increase visibility for these while you simultaneously work on long-term organic optimization. You can adjust your PPC budget as your organic rankings improve over time.

Together, SEO and PPC allow you to dominate the SERP and achieve your marketing goals faster and more effectively.

Marry SEO and Social

Social media advertising is an important tool in most marketing programs. Social and SEO have a synergy between the two channels that is instrumental in amplifying your brand and improving your chances of being found online.

Emarketer cites 67% of US social media users are at least somewhat likely to research products on social media platforms before making a purchase. This highlights their importance in the discovery phase of the customer journey.

Here’s how social media marketing and SEO can work hand in hand:

• Content promotion. Sharing your content on social media boosts its visibility. With a bit of luck, your content might also go viral and draw in good backlinks from credible sites.
• Enhanced brand recognition. A strong social presence can lead to more branded searches on search engines, signaling authority and relevance.
• Improved content lifespan. If your content does go viral, it can keep attracting traffic over time, sustaining and even improving engagement metrics.

Here are some tips to align SEO and social media:

Align content strategies. Leverage data from SEO and social media for content creation. Pinpoint not just the topics that are trending but also the kinds of keywords that are performing at a high level. Use this information to create content that really clicks across both channels.

Optimize social profiles for search. Ensure your social media profiles are complete and optimized for improved visibility.

Integrate social sharing. Make your website content easily shareable on social media.

Leverage influencer collaborations. Linking up with important people in your field and being a part of the social world surrounding your company can expand your content’s reach. One way of accomplishing this is to collaborate with influencers — individuals who command a great deal of respect and have many followers within your industry — and who can share or even generate content for your site. If you need a place to begin, Forbes has put out lists of suggestions for tracking down some influencers.

When you marry social and SEO, you can create a cohesive digital marketing approach for more brand visibility and engagement.

For more, check out A High-Level Overview of How Social Media and SEO Can Work Together.

Sync SEO with Content Marketing

Marketers frequently utilize content marketing in their arsenal. In fact, CMI reports that 46% of B2B marketers think their content marketing budget will increase in 2025.

SEO provides the structure and direction for content, while content marketing skill sets fill that framework with quality material. Mix the two together and you have a valuable — and discoverable — website.

Content marketing and SEO work together in a loop: SEO-optimized content sends people to your website, while high-quality material keeps them engaged and on your page longer.

This, in turn, demonstrates to search engines your content is relevant and worthy of higher search rankings. Here are some tips for syncing SEO and content marketing:

Build a keyword-driven content strategy. Keyword research is the cornerstone of aligning SEO with content marketing. Identify terms your audience is searching for and develop content that answers their questions or solves their problems.

Create an SEO silo. Organize your content into silos, which are composed of comprehensive information on a topic that’s supported by keyword research, internal linking and URL structures.

SEO silos support a customer’s journey online, which goes from more broad searches to more specific searches by housing all of the necessary content for that journey on your website. Learn more by reading SEO Siloing: What, Why, How.

Use performance metrics to inform content priorities. How well does your existing content perform with your ideal audience? Look at page views, engagement rates and time spent on a given page to determine what content your audience wants more of — and what they don’t.

On the other hand, look for topics that should always be current. Content that is perpetually current maintains a steady level of relevance and value, potentially yielding constant traffic and interaction. They form the core of your site’s content strategy and what you’ll compete on in search. Optimize these pieces with updated keywords and fresh data periodically to ensure they remain competitive in search rankings.

You can use tools like Google Search Console over time to identify declining performance in evergreen posts and refresh them with updated information or additional subtopics.

Repurpose SEO content. Transform well-performing blog posts into videos, infographics, or downloadable guides to extend their life and keep engagement up. Try turning a popular blog post into a short video series that can be posted on social media.

SEO and content marketing strengthen one another. Together, they build authority, engage audiences and drive sustainable traffic and conversions.

Final Thoughts

SEO is a strategic connector that aligns your marketing. From amplifying your paid ads, social media and content marketing, SEO helps you achieve stronger brand visibility by engaging your audience at every stage of their journey.

If SEO isn’t part of your marketing strategy, you’re leaving money on the table. Our SEO experts can help you align SEO to elevate your entire marketing funnel.

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FAQ: How can aligning SEO and marketing initiatives improve visibility in the search results and paid advertising returns?

Aligning SEO and marketing initiatives is key if you hope to achieve any significant increase in your business’s online visibility and if you’re trying to get maximum efficiency out of your paid search advertising efforts.

SEO tends to go after the kinds of search strategies that appeal to organic results. It aims to ensure that our content appears at or near the top of the listings when the right sorts of people do keyword-specific searches. Meanwhile, the initiatives of marketing tend to cast a much wider net and try to reach a more supra-search audience through online campaigns that are often more intense (and directive) than what’s typical with SEO.

First, a coherent SEO and marketing strategy guarantees that both organic and paid efforts are working together, not at cross-purposes, and definitely not against one another. It counteracts the potential for keyword cannibalization, where PPC and SEO are like cats, fighting for the same sunny spot. It uses the budget better, for one thing, but more crucially, it allows for consistent messaging across all platforms. That strengthens brand identity and enhances user experience, which helps conversion rates.

Putting together SEO and marketing builds brand authority and trust. Content that ranks well and comes from a search engine has such a high level of trust that many would say it’s the most credible way to reach an audience. The reason is simple: We aren’t being sold to as consumers; that makes us more open to listening and engaging. That’s why this dual strategy is so effective.

Assembling sophisticated practices, like artificial intelligence, within the practice of data analysis can boost the preciseness of search engine optimization and the marketing sharpness of a business. A large number of these innovations provide insights into the performance of a business’s marketing campaigns that are nearly real-time.

This translates into being able to make adjustments and optimizations almost instantaneously. Marketing that uses “cross-channels” can extend the reach of a business, amplify engagement with users, and most importantly, create a smooth journey from first becoming aware of the business to the point of conversion.

Step-by-Step Procedure

1. Assess current SEO and marketing strategies to locate areas of consensus and dissent.
2. Construct a collaborative keyword strategy that yields results for both organic and paid campaigns.
3. Tools that allow for tracking and analysis of data in real time will let you know how successful your campaign is.
4. Achieve deeper insights into customer behaviors using analytics that AI drives.
5. Create content that functions as SEO and is searchable by potential customers. This means writing in a way that increases not only visibility but also engagement with your audience.
6. Optimize ad spending by evaluating the effectiveness of keywords across all channels.
7. Encourage collaboration between SEO and marketing teams so that their objectives are synchronized.
8. Employ social networks for the boost of SEO materials and the steering of users toward promotional messages.
9. Use A/B testing for ads to make the messaging and targeting clearer.
10. Employ retargeting strategies to reconnect with users who have previously interacted with you.
11. Remain updated on progress in the sector and modify tactics to maintain a lead over competitors.
12. Ensure that the team is equipped with the latest knowledge in SEO and marketing to allow effective implementation of those strategies. Invest in effective implementations.
13. Define clear and precise key performance indicators (KPIs) that will assess how effective the integrated campaign is.
14. Use content marketing to boost search engine optimization efforts and furnish users with useful content.
15. Seek alliances that can elevate your visibility and boost your credibility.
16. Continuously enhance strategies and work processes using performance data and alterations in market conditions.

Bruce Clay is founder and president of Bruce Clay Inc., a global digital marketing firm providing search engine optimization, pay-per-click, social media marketing, SEO-friendly web architecture, and SEO tools and education. Connect with him on LinkedIn or through the BruceClay.com website.

See Bruce's author page for links to connect on social media.