Introduction
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) provides effective ways to help improve visibility of a business online through paid search ads for driving traffic to websites for increased sales in a competitive marketplace. Businesses have to rank high on search engine result pages in order to get traffic and recognition. These days most of the potential customers of the product or service come through searching on search engines. Therefore, ranking there on top positions provides perfect opportunity to capture that audience and land them on a website. We use two types of strategies to rank our content on search engine results such that SEO and SEM.
SEO and SEM Comparison
SEO and SEM are both tools that are used for the same purpose which is to help content appear in search results. Although their end goal is same but they function entirely in a different way. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a strategy that helps show content in organic search results for free. Whereas, SEM is a paid strategy and it offers result very quicky as compare to the SEO which can take months to produce results. SEM can be a perfect solution to all your marketing goals specially where organic search results are too competitive to appear at the top of search result.
What is Search Engine Marketing (SEM)?
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is one of the most used digital marketing tools for increasing business exposure and reach by giving it a better ranking on search engine searches. It is also known as paid search or pay per click (PPC) advertising which offers to increase the visibility of a website in search engine results pages by displaying business among the top results. In short, to promote and advertise your content on top of the search engine result pages (SERP) through targeted ads using paid search advertising such as Google ads or Bing ads refers to search engine marketing.
Why Is SEM Important?
In this digital era, where majority of the users have shifted online. Businesses need effective search engine marketing strategy in order to ensure their success. With search Engines becoming the primary tool for finding the products and services, it has become more important then ever to have marketing strategy that can help you get in front of the potential customers.
Why Should Use SEM?
Anyone having product or service they can sell online must make use of SEM techniques. Search engines get millions of queries every day which represents great opportunity for business who can cater those requests. Competition among those who want to avail those chances are really high because users directly click on the top results offered by the search engine. Therefore, to rank a website on top by making use of SEM allows to upscale your profits by getting maximum leads and making conversions.
Key Components of SEM
When a user enters a query related to some product or service google displays results organically optimised through search engine optimization. The paid advertising campaigns, however, provide an opportunity for businesses to rank higher on the top of the search engine results on specific keywords targeted through ads. The core components of SEM are mentioned below:
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising
It is the type of advertising where advertiser pay each time their ad gets clicked. What happens is you assign a budget for your ad using Google Ads, targeting specific keywords against which you want to appear on Google sponsored sections in search engine results. Every time Google directs a viewer to your website it deducts some amount.
Keyword Research
Targeting the right keywords for running an ad is crucial to get the potential customers. Doing research and figuring out the right keywords for running ads is very important in order to funnel the audience that has high chances to convert. Optimized ads ensure higher return on investment which guarantees the success of any campaign.
Ad Auction and Bidding
There are a lot of companies and organizations who are fighting for the top positions in search engine results. Google offers an auction system where a budget is allocated against the keywords for which we want to secure the higher sponsored sections. Bids are placed on keywords by the advertisers and the highest bidders typically get the top ad placements in the search engine results.
Ad Creation and Optimization
Creating ads that engage users and enforce clicks on ads require compelling skills. Writing an ad copy that is up to the mark and creating effective landing pages are a few factors that play vital role in the success of any ad.
Campaign Management
Managing and monitoring campaigns is very important for keeping track on how they are performing and how their performance can be improved. Campaigns can be further optimized by making data driven decisions based on the responses we receive over time.
Benefits of SEM
Let us briefly discuss some of the benefits of search engine marketing.
Immediate Visibility
SEM is very effective in terms of immediate results. You can start seeing the responses to campaigns almost instantly after their launch. SEO can take months to produce results while SEM offers businesses instant visibility on search engines since timing is crucial when it comes to boosting sales and promoting offers.
Targeted Advertising
Targeting the right audience through specific demographics, locations, interests and behavior using SEM allows to show the ads to the most relevant audience who are most likely to convert into customers.
Measurable Results
In order to let businesses track the performance of their campaigns and make data-driven decisions for better return on investment and running optimized campaigns SEM offers detailed reporting based on analytics and metrics.
Cost-Effective
With marketing efforts based on PPC advertising, businesses are only supposed to pay when users click on their ad which makes it a cost-effective way to drive traffic, generate leads and make conversions.
Brand Awareness and Visibility
Chances of creating awareness about the brand increases with businesses consistently ranking high in search engines. As a result, the brand gets recognized and develops credibility among the visitors, which goes a long way in converting a visitor into customer.
The Essentials of SEM Strategy
How an Ad Auction Works
Ad auction is the process in which Google decides how to rank ads against different keyword search queries. Ad auction determines which ad is going to be displayed on top and the order in which multiple ads are going to be placed on search results for a specific keyword research. Understanding how an ad auction works is vital for someone who is planning on investing in SEM marketing. In order to make sure your ad performs well and bring you potential clients you have to make sure to win the ad auction. For that, identifying the right keywords you want to bid on and deciding the budget you are willing to spend on per click is crucial. Maximum bid and your ad’s quality score are the two main factors on the basis of which Google decides whether or not you will win the ad auction.
Quality Score
Quality Score is something that determines your ad rank such that where the ad is going to appear in search results. The Quality Score for an Ad can be found in Google Ads accounts under the column of keywords “Status” and the score is evaluated on a scale of 1 to 10. The overall quality score of an ad is estimated through quality of ads, keywords and landing pages. It shows how important is it to create ads hat are relevant to users along with the smooth landing page experience. Hence, prioritising to get high Quality Score for your ad has to be the most important part of your strategy.
SEM Strategy
Having a specific goal in mind for paid search ads helps optimizing the SEM strategy. The pillars on which the foundation of a successful strategy is laid on for optimum performance of an Ad are keywords, budget and copy. With this in mind, finding the ads that are already performing well and studying their strategy also helps a great deal in developing a promising strategy. With all the knowledge and experience of years, we promise to deliver the best solution for all your SEM marketing needs.