6. Overcome analysis paralysis. A common cause of keyword complacency involves too much data analysis and not enough action. Make sure that whatever SEO and PPC key performance indicators you're tracking are actionable, and that the actions that you take are informed by your data.
7. Ensure the left and right hands are working together. Valuable insights can be gleaned by analyzing SEO and PPC data side-by-side and/or in aggregate. By better executing PPC, you can better execute SEO, and vice versa. By not aggregating and sharing PPC and SEO data, valuable search marketing insights are going up in smoke!
8. Find efficiencies. While you can't automate search marketing as a whole, in general, if you find yourself doing the same, repetitive tasks over and over, try to find a way to automate it. Use the time savings to focus on value added tasks like content creation, ad text authoring, or search marketing strategy.
9. Prioritize and plan. There are an endless number of things you can tweak and optimize. One of the most important skills in search is the ability to plan a series of actions (i.e., a workflow) that will provide the biggest returns for time spent.
10. Get help if you need it! If you can't apply the resources needed to execute a well optimized search campaign, consider getting help. Going it alone or under resourced will most certainly lead to keyword complacency as well as a burnout. To effectively market through search, it's necessary to create an environment where copywriters, marketers, developers, and anyone else involved is aware not only of search marketing best practices, but also of more specific objectives and targets (e.g., which page should be targeting which keyword, etc.). Adopt tools and processes that can enable coordination and collaboration of PPC and SEO efforts.
While keyword complacency is among the most common search marketing challenges, it's not insurmountable. After all, your PPC campaigns deserve higher quality scores at a lower spend, and your SEO efforts can reach new heights in organic search verticals. Follow this proven 10 step program to eliminate keyword complacency from your search marketing efforts once and for all.
Larry Kim is founder and VP of marketing & products of WordStream.
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