Google Ads Meets SEO: Blending SEMrush Insights with Ahrefs Content

In the digital marketing world, pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns and search engine optimization (SEO) are often treated as separate efforts. One drives fast results, the other builds long-term visibility. But what if the real power lies in blending the two?

For one test-prep academy, this hybrid strategy paid off—literally. By using SEMrush to structure Google Ads and Ahrefs to optimize their landing pages, the team saw a 20% drop in cost-per-conversion and an overall improvement in ad performance.

Here’s how they pulled it off, and how you can apply the same tactics.

The Challenge: High Ad Costs and Underperforming Landing Pages

The academy was running Google Ads targeting various standardized tests—think SAT, TOEFL, and IELTS. While traffic was steady, their cost per conversion was creeping up, and landing page performance wasn’t matching their ad spend.

They realized they needed more than keyword bidding—they needed alignment between their ads and the landing experience.

Step 1: Building Smarter PPC Campaigns with SEMrush

SEMrush offered a powerful suite of tools to improve the ad strategy from the ground up.

Using SEMrush’s Advertising Research, the team analyzed:

• Competitor ad copy and structure

• Top-performing keywords in paid search

• PPC trends and seasonal opportunities

• Keyword intent behind each search term
  
  

They restructured their Google Ads campaigns by:

• Creating tightly themed ad groups based on intent (e.g., “test prep near me” vs “free SAT practice test”)

• Using SEMrush Keyword Magic Tool to find long-tail phrases with lower CPC and high relevance

• Crafting more targeted ad copy that matched user search language and pain points
  
  

This groundwork helped the academy stop wasting budget on generic terms and start investing in high-intent, conversion-ready queries.

Step 2: Optimizing Landing Pages with Ahrefs

While SEMrush refined the ads, Ahrefs was deployed to improve the organic and UX quality of the landing pages.

Using Ahrefs’ Site Explorer and Content Gap tool, they identified:

• Keywords that the landing pages were missing, but competitors were using

• Weak content areas, such as lack of structured headers or poorly optimized meta descriptions

• Inbound links to low-performing pages that could be repurposed or redirected
  
  

Ahrefs also provided clarity on:

• Search intent for keywords (informational, transactional)

• Backlink potential, helping them target keywords with strong content-building opportunities
  
  

The team made key landing page improvements:

• Rewrote copy to reflect the exact keywords used in ads

• Added FAQs and testimonials to build trust and match user expectations

• Optimized page load times and mobile performance

• Implemented schema markup for educational content
  
  

These changes made each landing page more relevant, keyword-aligned, and conversion-optimized.

The Outcome: Lower Costs, Higher Results

Within six weeks:

• The cost per conversion dropped by 20%

• Quality Score for most keywords improved, leading to lower CPCs

• Bounce rates fell, and average session duration increased

• Pages began ranking organically for long-tail variations, reducing reliance on paid ads
  
  

By aligning what the user searched for, what they clicked, and what they landed on, the academy delivered a seamless experience—one that Google rewarded both in paid and organic visibility.

Why This Hybrid Approach Works

Too often, SEO and PPC are run in silos. But when you let them inform each other, magic happens.

• SEMrush excels at paid keyword insight, helping you identify trends, competitor gaps, and budget-friendly terms.

• Ahrefs shines in organic keyword targeting and content optimization, ensuring your landing pages support not just conversions, but long-term rankings.
  
  

Used together, these tools help:

• Eliminate keyword waste

• Align ad copy and landing content

• Build long-term content assets from paid insights

• Improve overall site health and authority
  
  

Final Thoughts

Running Google Ads without SEO is like driving traffic to a half-built store. Optimizing landing pages without knowing what users are really clicking on is just as risky.

By combining the strengths of SEMrush for PPC strategy and Ahrefs for content depth, the test-prep academy created a scalable, cost-effective system that delivered measurable ROI—and so can you.

If you're tired of high CPC and low conversion, maybe it’s time your SEO and PPC teams started talking. With the right tools and the right strategy, they don’t just coexist—they amplify each other.