First, What Is Search Engine Marketing?
Search engine marketing (SEM) is a digital marketing strategy used to increase the visibility and brand recognition of a website in search engine results pages.
This refers to both search engine optimisation (SEO) and paid search advertising (PPC). However, this mainly now refers to the paid search side of marketing.
What Makes Search Engine Marketing Important?
With several consumers searching for products and services online, search engine marketing has become a crucial strategy for increasing a company’s visibility and ability to convert.
The majority of new visitors to a website find it by performing a keyword search on search engines.
In search engine marketing, advertisers only pay for impressions that result in visitors, making it an effective way for a company to spend its marketing budget. As a bonus, each visitor incrementally improves the website’s rankings in organic search results.
Since consumers enter search queries with the intent of finding information of a commercial nature, they are in an excellent state of mind to receive marketing messages and to be nurtured as prospective customers.
Search engine marketing reaches consumers at precisely the right time: when they are open to new information. Unlike most of digital advertising, search engine marketing is non-intrusive and does not interrupt their tasks.
Results are immediate with SEM. It is arguably the fastest way to drive traffic and increase conversions for your business.
How Does SEM Work?
Search engines use complicated algorithms to ensure the most relevant results are returned for each search, including location and other available information.
In paid search advertising, sponsored ads show at the top of and on the side of search engine results pages to gain more visibility and prominence than the organic results.
Imagine that you are a customer looking for a product or service online. You go to a search engine and type in your search terms (also known as keywords).
In your search results page, you will come across various company ads whose keywords match the keywords in your search.
These ads appear in visible locations on the page – along with the other search listings that match your keywords. The paid listings are highly relevant to your specific search, making it likely that you will click on them.
Most Search Engine Marketing networks are self-serve tools. Once a marketer selects a system, he or she can get a campaign up within a short time.
When setting up a campaign within an SEM network, the marketer is encouraged to:
• Select a set of keywords related to their website or product;
• Select a geographic location for the ad to be displayed within;
• Create a text-based ad to show in the search results;
• Put a keyword bid that is relevant to the keyword and based on competitors bids
Text-only ads are easy to produce. Marketers enter a headline, text for the body of the ad, a call-to-action and a URL for the hyperlink.
Search engine marketing is considered by many to be the most efficient way to spend marketing budget.
The two primary search networks that SEM professionals target are Google AdWords and Bing Ads.
Google AdWords is two networks: Google Search and Google Display Network. The first network consists exclusively of search- related websites owned by Google, while the second includes properties such as YouTube and Gmail.
Bing Ads enables customers to buy ads on both Yahoo’s network of websites and Bing’s networks, also including the Microsoft network.
While Google AdWords is a much more extensive network, the pricing is often quite considerably lower on Bing Ads. Marketers may be able to get a better rank for a competitive keyword phrase for less than they get on Google. Some report that the clickthrough rates (CTR) are higher as well.
How Do I Take Advantage Of Search Engine Marketing?
SEM not only helps to generate qualified traffic to your websites but can increase brand awareness and conversions rates.
The higher your product or service ranks in search engines; the more likely consumers will visit your website and prefer you or even recommend your offering.
For the best results, using a digital marketing agency will give you the best results, increasing your search rankings (ad rank) and helping you maximise ROI.
