PPC and SEO can co-exist, but not always. Samuel Lavoie joins the SEO Rant Podcast to share his thoughts on when looking at SEO from a PPC perspective can be detrimental to organic growth:
Why we should separate SEO from PPC more than some might think
Why SEOs need to be informed of PPC campaigns
Why you should not have the same people doing SEO and PPC
When You Should Separate SEO Efforts From PPC Efforts
Have you ever run a branded search query and found the very brand you're looking for is running Search Ads for their own name? It's very common. It's also very common that the actual organic result that the user is looking for doesn't appear above the fold (thanks to more Search Ads).
Why does this matter?
Because instead of getting what would have been free traffic, all things being equal, the user clicks on your ad. So the same user that would have come organically now just cost you a bit of money. In all likelihood, the user would have bypassed the ads from your competitors. After all, they were searching for your brand by name.
This is a clear example of when focusing too strongly on PPC and letting it influence how to think about SEO can end up hurting your site. In this case, perhaps the better move would be to allow the SEO work you've done to shine and be effective.
Communication Between SEO and PPC Teams Is Vital
The case above is the poster child for why there needs to be communication between paid and organic teams. Often, a PPC team will start a Search Ads campaign and the first time the SEO team will hear about it is when they see clicks are down for branded terms.
At a very minimum keeping the SEO team abreast as to what is happening in the PPC side of things will save time and money. Instead of the SEO team diving into the data to see why there was a shift in clicks or impressions or whatnot they will simply have the answer before the problem ever happens.
Don't Mix Your SEO and PPC Teams
Quite often you will a job listing requiring the same person to handle both SEO and PPC tasks. This can be a major mistake if only because keeping up with both disciplines is extremely difficult. Both SEO and PPC are constantly changing. Not only that, but both are quite complex and each in their own way.
Not that it is impossible to manage both and to stay up to date on both. There are indeed people who surely can. And, of course, it all depends. Perhaps with a smaller site doing relatively straightforward things, having someone handle both SEO and PPC totally fine. However, as a rule, it is very hard to specialize in both PPC and SEO at the same time. Whenever possible, I would say it's a best practice to have a specialist for both disciplines.
Resources
For more of the SEO Rant Podcast check out our previous episode on how to manage SEO projects.