Many business owners assume that running paid ads means they can put SEO on the back burner. That’s a costly misconception. SEO and PPC are deeply connected, and neglecting one will always hurt the other. Here are five SEO mistakes that could be quietly killing your paid ad performance.
1. Targeting the Wrong Keywords
If you thought you could skip SEO when you choose paid ads, think again. Your website and keywords have a huge impact on any PPC advertising. Overly broad keywords are unhelpful because they’re already dominated by large companies with ad budgets that would make most people’s eyes water. Irrelevant keywords are even worse—they grab attention from the wrong people, and you pay for it.
2. Poor SEO on Landing Pages
Let’s say your ads are already perfect. You’ve selected great keywords and designed eye-catching ads that your target audience loves. What could go wrong? A lot—if your landing page isn’t up to snuff. A slow loading time makes a landing page useless. If more than three seconds elapse, over 50% of visitors bounce. They’re not going to check back later to see if your site has become faster. A crowded layout makes navigation a chore and gives an unprofessional impression, which also raises bounce rates. To make matters worse, the problem compounds: Search engines assess user experience, including bounce rate, when determining rankings.
3. Ignoring Mobile Functionality
Most web traffic arrives via mobile devices. If your website isn’t mobile-friendly, that has to change. Mobile visitors aren’t patient. Who wants to have to work hard just to click a tiny, awkward link? Who wants to be forced to scroll from side to side just to read a line of text? Nobody. Visitors aren’t the only ones who react badly to poor mobile performance, though. Google itself punishes sites with poor mobile performance. The search company knows that users hate sites with bad mobile functionality, so it makes a point to avoid sending them there.
4. Lackluster Content
Low-quality website content doesn’t rank well in search engines. It’s also a problem for the Quality Score of your Google Ads. The Quality Score is a numeric assessment of how good your ad is. It’s a useful benchmark, but it’s one factor among many rather than the final word on your ad’s success. That includes the landing page your ad leads to. If the content on your landing page is thin, that will lower your score, raising your cost per click (CPC) and showing your ad less prominently. Duplicate content also lowers your Quality Score, so resist the temptation to reuse the same text on all your landing pages. Minor tweaks aren’t enough to freshen content. Your content must be original, interesting, and informative while focusing on the things visitors actually want to know. Fortunately, small improvements can pay dividends. Performing a simple SEO audit before any adjustments in ad spend is an easy way to boost your ads’ effectiveness, and refreshing content is easier than pulling it out of thin air.
5. Improperly Tracked Conversions
Clicks and impressions are important, but they don’t tell the whole story. You need detailed tracking to understand whether your SEO is bringing in real customers. Without a clearer breakdown, you have no way to know which keywords, ads, and pages are the heaviest hitters when it comes to driving conversions. In contrast, the following metrics provide actionable insight:
- Form submissions
- Purchases
- Phone calls
- Visits to high-intent pages
- Time on page
- Bounce rate
Google Ads provides a suite of analytics tools to collect and assess these metrics, though even more advanced options are available. There’s a learning curve no matter which ones you pick. Many small business owners feel their time is best spent on the core business areas only they can handle, so they rely on trusted experts for their SEO needs.
Ready to Get More From Your Ad Spend?
Any one of these mistakes can quietly erode the return on your ad spend. Together, they can make even a well-funded campaign feel like it’s going nowhere. The good news is that each of them is fixable—often with targeted changes that don’t require a complete overhaul.
