In a world where online marketing is key, no small business should be without an online strategy. Search engine marketing (SEM) is a way a business can increase site visibility and traffic using tools like search engine optimization (SEO) and paid digital ads. Search engine marketing will help grow a business by generating brand awareness and driving traffic to a site and getting conversions. Every business looking to leverage its site as a sales tool to grow should be using SEM. If you want to read more about SEO, read our other blog posts specifically about Search Engine Optimization. In this blog, we will be learning more about the paid ad side of SEM.
The first rule for effective SEM is to make sure your website is well designed and high quality. Otherwise, your search engine marketing efforts will be in vain. It won’t matter how many clicks and how much traffic it gets, if the website doesn’t perform as a sales tool or if it’s poorly designed it won’t help your business.
The next important step in SEM is defining a goal for your company. Of course, the goal in the end is to make money for your business but it is never just that simple. In SEM, there are a lot of different options. Awareness and consideration are the goals. Awareness, or getting your brand in front of people, so they remember your company is key. Consideration is trying to help your audience purchase your product. Defining your goals will help target people on different parts of the marketing funnel. Different campaign types offer different strengths and weaknesses. There is not one type of campaign that is better than the other. It just depends on how you want to market online.
Search ad campaigns
The easiest campaign for companies to run is google search ads. Google search ads are a keyword based campaign that gets your ad on the search engine results page. This helps small businesses show up high for keywords that they might want to rank for, but in some instances keywords might cost a lot of money. You can go after keywords that don’t cost as much, but they might not see as much traffic. This process of creating paid ads that display top search results based on keywords gives businesses a way to quickly rank in search results on keywords that their site does not currently rank for, making it a great short-term strategy for building brand awareness. These search campaign ads can be shown in the Google display network, but this is not recommended. If you are going to put an ad here, it is best to create a display ad.
Display ad campaigns
Another campaign type is display campaigns. Display campaigns lets you upload a picture and show that on millions of websites across Google’s display network. This campaign type is very good for building brand awareness. Instead of keyword targeting, you just target your audience including a certain demographic. WIth it mainly being around awareness, this may not see as many clicks to your website as other campaign types, but it is still useful to get your brand into the mind of the consumer.
Video ad campaigns
Video ad campaigns mainly show ads on YouTube, but they are a great way to show off your product or service in a new medium. Just like display ads, you can target them to a certain demographic.
Retargeting campaigns
Retargeting campaigns is a consideration strategy that companies can use to bring customers back to their website. You can make retargeting ads for people who have been to your website or put an item in their cart to try to get them to come back and finish the conversion. A very popular use of retargeting campaign is a display retargeting campaign showing some type of offer for them to come back and finish their conversion or purchase.
Google shopping campaigns
Google shopping campaigns is another consideration based campaign type. These campaigns are usually applicable to companies that sell their products online or in person. These campaigns usually cost the most per click but they have one of the highest conversion rates. You need to set up a Google merchant center account to run these campaigns, but they can be helpful to sell a product.
Local ad campaigns
Local ad campaigns can be helpful to companies that sell a product or service at a store. A local ad campaign can help with geographical targeting. It can help push customers to a brick and mortar store. This can be helpful for companies who want to push the in-person experience.
Landing pages
A landing page is a unique webpage that is designed specifically for a paid ad campaign. In other words, users who click an ad will be directed to “land” on the corresponding landing page, which serves as a sales tool to help reinforce the ad’s message and drive conversions. A very important part of SEM is what page the customer lands on once they click on your ad. This can help the customer feel like they went to the right place.
One thing to keep in mind when performing SEM is that you are not guaranteed any clicks or any conversions. SEM is a way to get your brand in front of your audience but it is up to the consumer to click on the ad and make a conversion. A lot of companies go into SEM thinking that it will definitely make them money without having to pay, but sometimes that does not happen. You need to be wise with how much money you want to invest. You won’t always get as much out as you put in, but it’s worth the investment.
Search engine marketing can be a great way to boost the awareness of your brand or boost conversions. Any small business should consider search engine marketing to help grow their online presence and business potential. Making sure that your website is clear and concise, choosing the right campaign for your business, and doing everything you can to make sure your customer can find your business online will help you to achieve success.