Uniting PPC and SEO for Long-Term Success (Plus Some Content Marketing)
Dallas Golf Company is a retail business based in Dallas, Texas, offering everything their local customers need to fuel their passion for golf.
They stock only the best brands – you name it, they have it. Fujikura Ventus. Autoflex Golf Shafts. Nike Golf Equipment. Check. Check. Check.
They also run a thriving eCommerce platform (link above) to extend their reach and serve golfers across the nation. Expertise and inventory like theirs are hard to find.
But how do they reach that wider market? That’s the bigger challenge. Luckily for both their customers and themselves, they teamed up with us for PPC and SEO services to drive online growth. Here’s the quick rundown.
The Background
It all began in early 2020. Like many others in their industry, they were searching for effective ways to expand their online presence.
They already offered the best golf equipment brands in the market, including the most sought-after clubs, shafts, and golf bags, all at competitive prices. In addition, they provided club fitting services, sold pre-owned gear, and more. Their service is exceptional.
The next challenge? Deciding which channels to target. For this project, we opted for a dual approach, focusing on both PPC and SEO.
Why PPC and SEO Work So Well Together
Starting from scratch, adopting a two-pronged strategy that includes both PPC and SEO is a smart approach. This is because the two work in distinctly different ways, each helping to propel the overall strategy forward in the long term.
Here’s why: With search engine optimization (SEO), you need to make detailed adjustments at the page level. These optimizations take time to implement, and it takes even longer for search engines like Google to notice and assign authority, which then helps improve rankings in organic search results. You also need to create a long-term content strategy and begin building backlinks.
This process takes time, and most SEO efforts don’t show significant results for at least a year. In this case, we can look back and see the progress made.
The key takeaway? SEO is a long game, and while it can eventually pay off, it typically takes a while. For clients who want to see quicker results, investing in PPC is a smart move.
With PPC, instead of waiting for organic growth, you bid for premium ad spots in the paid search results by purchasing relevant keywords. This allows PPC marketers to secure top positions for higher visibility, almost overnight.
When paired with exceptional targeting – which we’ll dive into below – PPC can drive traffic and boost conversions and sales from the get-go.
It gets even better: As customer and purchasing data accumulates during the campaign, PPC experts can fine-tune the strategy and refine targeting, which improves ROI and ROAS, ultimately increasing profitability.
As SEO gains traction and organic impressions, clicks, and sales begin to build momentum, domain authority rises. Higher organic rankings enhance the credibility of paid ads, which helps create a more efficient bid strategy and reduces cost per click.
Keyword Strategy, Targeting, and Laying the Groundwork
To succeed in both SEO and PPC, a unified keyword strategy is essential – and often, this strategy will focus on the same keywords.
That’s the key to a successful campaign, though we’ll keep the full formula to ourselves. But, to give you a glimpse, our SEO specialists identified a variety of golf shaft and bag-related keywords that were achievable, had solid search volume, and indicated strong purchase intent.
These keywords became the foundation of the entire campaign. For SEO, targeting was largely driven by the search intent behind the keywords. In PPC, however, we added an extra layer of precision, targeting by region, specific keywords, and a refined set of demographic factors.
With this combined keyword strategy and targeting approach set in motion, the groundwork was laid. So, what kind of results have we seen over the years?
Success with PPC and SEO Is a Long-Term Game: Results
Success in PPC is directly tied to user actions and, ultimately, sales. The effectiveness and profitability of the campaign are measured by ROAS, or return on ad spend. Let’s take a closer look at conversions and their associated value.
These metrics are clear-cut, and the numbers we’re about to present pretty much speak for themselves. Below is the data for their PPC campaigns from Q1 of 2023:
As shown in the image, which illustrates performance during that quarter, there was still a solid volume of conversions and total conversion value.
However, part of our strategy involved continuously seeking ways to enhance the campaign. We identified that by incorporating a Customer Match list, along with tracking calls, store visits, and directions to the store in mid-2023, we could refine our targeting, attract new customers, and boost conversions and overall conversion value.
The results, as reflected in the data from Q4 2023, show the impact:
And again by data from Q1 2024:
I won’t discuss the point; the numbers speak for themselves.
As for SEO, it’s also a gradual process. Here are some figures related to target keyword rankings up to the present:
As you can see from the latest scan through one of our proprietary tools that tracks organic keyword positions, Dallas Golf Company ranks on the first page for most of the target keywords shown in the image below.
You can clearly observe the rankings and search volume, though we’ve blurred out the keywords to safeguard the strategy:
But what about organic traffic? Impressions? Clicks? Sales?
We can track some of this through Google Search Console. Although we can only look back 16 months, the data clearly shows a steady upward trend, with a slight dip in the middle – which is typical due to natural search engine algorithm updates and fluctuations:
Still, the overall trend is overwhelmingly positive.
We can gain further insights through Google Analytics GA4, particularly in terms of event count. While there were some minor drops in views and users, which are to be expected with an increase in traffic, the number of events has risen significantly:
This, of course, represents the bottom line – both organic and paid traffic have generated a significant amount of conversions and revenue for the client. However, there’s more to uncover.
The Subtle Impact: Content Marketing Success
In SEO, you’ve likely heard the phrase, “Content Is King.” While it can mean different things to different people, in this context, it’s crucial to recognize that much of organic growth – SEO, in particular – relies heavily on the quality of content a website produces.
Content creation can include product page copy, category page copy, blog posts, CMS page content, FAQ sections – anything, really – but it must be tied to your domain, offer value, and establish authority.
For this eCommerce SEO campaign, a large part of its success stemmed from refining category and product page content, as well as writing blog posts that resonated with the target audience. These blogs not only attracted visitors but also built authority for the pages we aimed to rank.
How valuable does content need to be? Let’s take a look at the top performers.
The image above highlights traffic to their blog since January 2023. The blog alone, which our content production team was primarily responsible for, generated nearly 200,000 views during this period.
What’s even more impressive is that the average session duration across those 100,000+ visits was over a minute – remarkably high. Clearly, people are engaging with these blogs and finding real value in them.
Even better? Each page carries some conversion value. This means not only are these blogs ranking and attracting traffic that reads them, but many visitors also go on to make a purchase from their website.
This is why you can’t fully optimize your website without creating content that truly resonates with your users. No digital marketing strategy – particularly SEO – is complete without it, and it’s arguably the most powerful ranking factor that will shape your online presence.
Get Your Marketing Off the Ground Today
Results like these are, in short, not exactly common, and there’s more to understand here. They don’t happen overnight – this case study makes that clear.
What’s even more unfortunate: You can’t kick off your SEO marketing efforts in 2020. That opportunity is no longer available.
But the good news? You can start today, and there’s no better time than now.
To begin driving more traffic, increasing sales, and building a strong organic presence and respected domain authority, reach out to us today at +91 7044444433.