When starting or continuing your online marketing journey, you're faced with a crucial decision: which channels to choose? A brand's digital presence involves many different ways to reach customers, and the multitude of available options can seem overwhelming. Pay-per-click (PPC) systems like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or TikTok Ads? Social media influencer marketing? Website positioning ? The options are endless, and it's undeniable that combining several channels will quickly become necessary. This way, they will intertwine and complement each other, combining their advantages and, to some extent, eliminating their disadvantages.
The vast majority of brands, when they "enter the internet," begin by creating their own website. This is almost always a sensible choice – having your own piece of the web allows you to present your brand, products, or services to customers, offering flexibility in form and content, without the limitations of reach that social media can impose.
When designing and publishing a brand's official website online, it's difficult to do without SEO. SEO advertising is a long-term investment, but this marathon usually pays off! What's more, it integrates well with other online promotion methods, such as Google Ads.
Positioning as an advertising channel
Let's start with what exactly SEO advertising is, also known as website positioning (though not entirely correctly, as SEO is a broader term) . SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, which means optimizing websites for visibility in search engines.
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The pages displayed in search results for specific phrases in search engines (e.g., Google or Bing) are not random – their composition and order are the work of an advanced and constantly updated selection algorithm. It relies primarily on keywords. Therefore, when we enter any phrase, the engine returns a list of results that, in theory, best match the query. This means Google aims to limit the time users spend searching and redirect them to their desired destination as quickly as possible.
For the algorithm, ranking pages to truly reduce search time to an absolute minimum is a huge challenge. The search engine must "guess" what specific type of information the user is looking for—are they products they want to buy? Or perhaps they want to expand their knowledge of a given topic and gather specific data? Teaching the algorithm to meaningfully "understand" the user's intentions is the greatest challenge—and while the search system is still far from perfect, thanks to updates, the algorithm is getting marginally better at fulfilling this function every day.
Positioning – what is it?
The algorithm largely considers the content on a page, including its length, quality, and presentation. However, content is just one of over 200 factors analyzed by the algorithm. Below, we'll describe the most important elements that contribute to a page's position in search results – perfecting them, under the right circumstances, can yield incredible results in SEO advertising.
Before we dive into SEO advertising tips and principles, let's start with how to prepare for SEO . The first step should always be a thorough keyword analysis – what phrases do users enter into search engines to find products, services, or data on competing websites? What keywords are related to your industry?
Many programs and services that analyze keywords and the rankings of specific pages can help. The free Google Trends and Google Keyword Planner are worth considering, as are various paid solutions, including Ahrefs, Semstorm, and Senuto. When it comes to SEO, intuition must yield to collected data – if you think a certain keyword will drive valuable (i.e., converting) traffic to your site, but analysis suggests the opposite, the program will likely be right in 99% of cases.
It's worth remembering that from a business owner's perspective, the only user who truly matters is a conversion—they purchase a product or service or perform another planned action (e.g., watch a video on the website or download a PDF file). This means keywords must be aligned with branding or sales goals. While it's easy to attract a large number of users to a website, choosing the wrong keywords will only attract those uninterested in its content, failing to positively impact key business metrics.
Without meaningful keyword analysis, SEO is like wandering around in complete darkness online – you might attract a client, but you have no real chance of competing with someone equipped with night vision. If you've never done SEO before, you might want to consider hiring a professional SEO specialist to conduct an SEO audit . They'll identify the keywords with the greatest potential and suggest any necessary changes to your website.
There are many tools online that allow you to perform a DIY SEO audit – at Verseo, we've created one ourselves for free (link HERE ) . It's a good start to understanding what a website is missing and what to pay attention to. However, an automated audit won't replace a specialist's analysis, taking into account the specifics of the website, industry, and other aspects that an automated audit can't adequately address.
SEO advertising starts with content
When adapting your website to the algorithm's requirements, it's worth starting with the content. It must, of course, be engaging and encourage purchases, but it must also be search engine friendly. This means the content should be:
- Full of keywords – as little as possible so that it doesn't make reading difficult or create an unnatural impression. Potential customers will be turned off by inauthentic and simply strange-sounding text. The algorithm, which is increasingly better at recognizing "junk" content, will do the same.
- Long enough to comprehensively describe a given topic – this allows the user to learn more (and your brand gains an expert image). It also allows for the seamless inclusion of more keywords.
- Properly formatted – divided into paragraphs (nobody likes a dense wall of text – and neither does the Google algorithm), embellished with graphics, and written in a legible font. It's also good practice to include the title and subheadings, preferably with keywords, in the form of H1, H2, and H3 headings.
If you don't have enough space on your website to host larger amounts of content, starting a company blog might be a good idea. This offers virtually limitless possibilities – you can strengthen your brand's expert image, showcase your successes, showcase your expertise and specialists, and, thanks to content publication, drive valuable search engine traffic to your website.
On-site SEO
Content optimization is one of the components of on-site SEO, which involves activities performed directly on the website being positioned . Besides polishing the content, Google also values other important aspects of the website, and it's worth keeping them in mind for maximum SEO effectiveness.
Google also places great emphasis on technical issues, such as:
Page loading speed
The faster a website loads, the better—obviously. If the entire process takes more than a few seconds, many users will simply abandon their visit and move on to the next page in the search results. Google knows this, which is why loading time is a significant ranking factor. How can you shorten this waiting time? Steps include minifying JavaScript code, compressing images, migrating to a server with faster response times, and much more.
Google's PageSpeed Insights tool can be helpful in getting a basic understanding of what can be improved on a given page.
Responsiveness
Users browse websites on a variety of devices – desktop computers, laptops, tablets, smartphones, TVs, and many others. This means your website must display correctly and be comfortable to browse across multiple screen resolutions. The algorithm considers, among other things, text readability (for example, whether individual characters don't run off the screen).
SSL certificate
Encrypted communication is essential these days – and Google knows this too. Successful SSL (Secure Socket Layer) certificate installation is indicated by a green (or, in some browsers, gray) padlock next to the website address.
Friendly URLs
A URL has a specific structure, but its form may vary depending on the administrator's actions. For example, if you run an online store selling televisions, nazwasklepu.pl/telewizory or nazwasklepu.pl/kategoria/telewizory would be a much better address than a path generated by some CMSs, such as nazwasklepu.pl/index.php/category/3746272. User-friendly addresses are much more intuitive for users and allow web bots to better understand the content of the subpage.
Internal links
We've dedicated a separate section of this text to links, but it's worth mentioning internal links here. These are links that redirect to subpages within your own domain, making navigation easier for both users and bots.
Descriptions of the paintings
Each image can be assigned a title and an alt attribute, or alternative description. These attributes are usually not visible at first glance, but they are included in the code, making them perfectly understandable by web crawlers.
These are just some of the steps you should take on your website to improve its search engine rankings through on-site SEO. However, SEO encompasses much more than just the methods presented above. In addition to other ideas for adapting your website to algorithm requirements, it's also worth exploring the second area of SEO.
Off-site SEO, or the power of linking
Off-site SEO can be simply defined as all activities focused on acquiring links from other websites pointing to a given domain. A website's ranking is largely based on these links – this is often called (digital) social proof. The algorithm assumes that if a given page has many other high-value websites linking to it, the linked page is also considered valuable – and therefore, it's probably worth improving its ranking.
However, it's not that simple. The key is acquiring quality links, which will often be worth far more than a few hundred links from microsites with zero reputation.
It's also worth paying attention to the attributes of a given link. There are several types, the most important of which at the initial stage are:
- Dofollow – a link that “opens the door” to a web crawler – it encourages it to go to the linked page, ergo it has a clear positioning value.
- Nofollow – a link that a bot theoretically ignores – meaning it sees it but doesn't proceed. These include links from social media like Facebook or Twitter, as well as from Wikipedia.
However, it's not true that every nofollow link is pointless from an SEO perspective, and every dofollow link will add significant value. The algorithm values the natural link profile – suspicions of spam may result in the imposition of a filter that limits the site's visibility in search engines.
Where to get links? Valuable content will organically spread on its own to some extent, but this is usually not enough. Therefore, you can arrange a link exchange with the owner of another website or simply buy them. There are many services on the online market that allow you to purchase space on a given domain, but the selection of "link space" must be based on thorough research – otherwise, you could burn through your budget and, in extreme cases, significantly damage your painstakingly built website's ranking.
Hungry for knowledge? We encourage you to read our extensive article on link profiling for website owners!
SEO Advertising – What to Remember?
Website positioning doesn't produce immediate results – it can take months to see the first noticeable changes. The power of SEO inertia is significant, especially compared to PPC systems ( Google Ads or Facebook Ads ), where a well-configured campaign generates profits almost immediately. For this reason, positioning should be planned long-term – only such an approach will ensure meaningful results.
Schedule a free consultation with an experienced SEO specialist at Verseo and start positioning today!
Frequently asked questions about combining paid advertising with SEO
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of optimizing a website for search engines (such as Google or Bing). Commonly referred to as "SEO advertising" or positioning, this activity aims to improve a website's visibility in organic (unpaid) search results for specific keywords entered by users.
SEO is, by definition, a long-term investment—often referred to as a "marathon." It requires time, systematic work on content, and technical optimization, but the visibility and traffic it builds are long-lasting and highly profitable.
No channel is perfect, so synergy yields the best results. Paid PPC (Pay-Per-Click) campaigns provide immediate traffic and flexibility, while SEO builds stable, unpaid visibility over the long term. Combining these channels allows their advantages to complement each other and mitigate their disadvantages.
When we combine different channels (e.g., SEO, Google Ads, Meta Ads), our activities intertwine. For example, keyword data from Google Ads can be used to better optimize SEO texts, and a well-positioned, high-quality website reduces the cost of clicks in paid campaigns thanks to a higher website quality score.
While social media is important, having your own website and maintaining its visibility (SEO) gives your brand complete independence. Your own website provides a space where you have complete control over the format, content, and presentation of your offerings, and your reach isn't artificially limited overnight by the whims of social media algorithms.
Summary
The above article covers the following topics:
- positioning as a way to increase brand visibility in search engines, the importance of selecting the right phrases and the role of data and SEO audit in generating traffic that actually supports sales,
- creating content that supports SEO advertising.
