Blog: The Quarterly Plan That Aligns SEO + Paid for Bigger Impact

When SEO and paid media work together, you get more than traffic—you get traction.

Why Plan SEO and Paid Media Together?

SEO and paid media have the same goal, but they’re often planned in silos. That means duplicate work, mixed signals, and missed opportunities.

Your customers don’t separate channels when they search—and neither should your marketing plan.

Planning SEO and paid media together helps your team:

• Eliminate redundant efforts and messaging conflicts
• Share insights between channels (paid data fuels organic strategy and vice versa)
• Allocate budget more strategically across the funnel
• Align everyone—from content teams to media buyers—on shared goals

Instead of two teams running two strategies with two sets of metrics, you get one cohesive plan that drives toward real business outcomes.

Step 1: Anchor in Business Goals

Start your quarterly marketing plan by aligning both channels to core business KPIs. These could include:

• Pipeline growth or MQL targets
• Revenue goals by product or service line
• Customer acquisition or retention benchmarks
• Regional or audience-specific growth initiatives

✅ Why it matters: Without this alignment, your channels risk optimizing for different (and possibly conflicting) outcomes.

Step 2: Audit Past Performance

Before you plan the next quarter, assess what worked—and what didn’t.

Look at:

• SEO traffic trends, rankings, and conversion contributions
• Paid media spend, ROAS, lead quality, and creative performance
• Shared landing page effectiveness (bounce rates, time on page, conversion rates)
• Keyword overlaps and gaps between paid and organic

✅ Why it matters: You’ll surface quick wins, budget wasters, and valuable testing opportunities.

Step 3: Build an Integrated Campaign Calendar

Plan campaigns holistically across SEO and paid.

Include:

• Themes and core offers per month or sprint
• Shared landing pages and campaign assets
• Paid launch timelines to support new SEO content or updates
• Organic content publishing schedules that reflect paid insights

✅ Why it matters: You’ll maximize campaign momentum and ensure both channels are pulling in the same direction.

Step 4: Align Keyword Strategy

Use paid search data to inform organic content, and vice versa.

• Identify high-converting paid keywords that lack organic coverage
• Use organic performance to spot long-tail or top-of-funnel content opportunities
• Prioritize overlapping keywords for dual-channel domination

✅ Why it matters: Shared keyword intelligence drives more efficient content production and bidding strategy.

💡 Example:

Let’s say your paid search campaigns show that “how to fix my water heater” is a top lead driver but has a rising cost-per-click. You check the SERP and notice an AI Overview is showing for that query, making the top ad spots more expensive. Worse, your company isn’t mentioned in the AI Overview. That’s your cue to build or optimize organic content—like a blog post, service page, or FAQ—that targets the same intent. Now you’re opening up a new lead stream and reducing reliance on paid alone. 

Step 5: Strategize Budget Allocation

SEO is a long game. Paid media is a speedboat. Balance both.

Plan for:

• Lower-funnel spend (retargeting, branded queries, product pages)
• Mid- and top-funnel investment (top-of-funnel content amplification, gated offers)
• Strategic testing budgets for new platforms, formats, or offers

✅ Why it matters: Your budget reflects your goals, not just what worked last quarter.

Step 6: Define Benchmarks and KPIs

Set measurable, channel-specific, and cross-channel success metrics to track and optimize throughout the year, such as:

• SEO: Traffic by page type, rankings by topic cluster, assisted conversions
• Paid: ROAS, cost-per-MQL, lead quality scoring
• Combined: Contribution to pipeline, total CAC, cross-channel attribution trends

✅ Why it matters: When you define success clearly before launch, you can optimize toward it proactively.

Step 7: Build in Flexibility

You can’t predict every algorithm shift or ad cost swing. But you can prepare for change.

• Set mid-quarter checkpoints to review performance and pivot if needed
• Leave some budget unallocated for opportunistic moves
• Use shared dashboards to spot trends in real time

✅ Why it matters: A strong plan isn’t just well thought out—it’s built to flex as results come in.

📋 EXAMPLE: What a Quarterly Plan Might Look Like

Month	SEO Focus	Paid Media Focus	Shared Campaign
Month 1	New top-of-funnel blog series targeting high-volume keywords	Paid LinkedIn campaign promoting gated content	Brand awareness & lead gen theme
Month 2	Optimize bottom-funnel pages, technical SEO audit	Search ads for demo requests, remarketing on YouTube	Demo conversion push
Month 3	Publish updated pillar content based on paid insights	Boost high-performing organic content with paid spend	Cross-channel nurture campaign

Why Silverback?

We don’t just run SEO and paid media—we integrate them. Our team helps in-house marketers:

• Align organic and paid efforts to business outcomes
• Use paid data to drive smarter content planning
• Eliminate cross-channel friction (and wasted spend)
• Build quarterly plans that are strategic, flexible, and full-funnel

Let’s Build Your Next Marketing Plan Together

Want to get more from your SEO and SEM investment? Let’s connect.
👉 Schedule a planning session with Silverback

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