The Best Search Engine Marketing Strategies to Follow

Digital marketing is one of the ever-changing domains of online advertising sect. It offers a wide range of exposure for a business to grow and expand. But a business’ success lies in how it utilizes this for its good. It is your digital marketing team’s responsibility to identify the best options out there and apply it for your business.

Lately, people have been customizing and experimenting with these digital marketing strategies. Thanks to the low cost of these strategies, which makes it easier for even small business owners to include these in their marketing plans.

Everyone has come to realize that their business cannot grow online unless they include a great digital marketing strategy in their plan. Gone are the days of conventional marketing and promotions, we are looking forward to reaching the smart consumer who owns smart devices and is very well aware of the smart marketing options that exist. Regardless of whether you are planning to increase your consumer base or engagement, or even create brand awareness, a strong digital marketing strategy would help you realize your dreams.

We are familiar with terms, such as search engine optimization (SEO), PPC, email marketing, content marketing, and other digital marketing terminologies. But search engine marketing (SEM) is less discussed though it is an imperative part of the online digital marketing strategies. There is a general tendency for people to confuse SEM with SEO or PPC. A lot of distinctions exist between the three and going forward in this article, you would realize these variations.

What is Search Engine Marketing

Let us get started with what SEM is.

It is one of the most popular forms of digital marketing that is implemented by digital marketers around the world. By definition, SEM includes the online advertising and promotion of a business using its website. The main intention of this promotion is to increase the reach of the business through search engines. This is achieved through paid advertisements.

To be precise, now you would understand that PPC and SEO are branches of SEM. This marketing strategy is widely used these days for business promotion as it has been found helpful to take a business to the next level. Now, search engines love this kind of a marketing strategy that would help businesses reach out to their target audiences with ease.

What happens when you search for a query on a search engine, such as Google? You enter your query and the search engine comes up with related results. Some of the best results appear on the top. Our intention is to get out site at the top position within these search engine results.

When your business appears within the first few results of the Google page or the search engine page, there are higher chances that your website will reach more number of people than your peers. This means that you would be able to generate more brand awareness, consumers and engagement, which would help increase your success rate.

Of course, SEM gives you a lot of benefits, but it comes at a cost, which you should be ready to bear. When marketers implement SEM, they are required to pay a previously specified amount of fee for the impressions that they get on their website. Think of this investment, but make sure you are doing it the right way to minimize any kind of losses that might be incurred.

With each click, you will experience an increase in your ranking within the organic search results – that is, you will appear on the first page and you need not pay for it. While other marketing techniques seem to be persuasive, SEM isn’t. It will never leave them feeling forced or compelled to do something that they never wanted to in the first place. One of the main advantages of SEM is that it will help to increase the traffic to your site, which will drive users, thereby increasing engagement and ultimately bringing in conversions.

It is important to understand that the results that appear on the first page of the search engines, including Google, are somewhere around 1850 words. Also, it is important to understand that over 75% of consumers search online before making a purchase. Most consumers would prefer organic search results. But most times, marketers are getting better results than they would with SEO or PPC.

Best Practices for Search Engine Marketing

So we will take you through some interesting search engine marketing strategies to help increase engagement and conversions.

1. Selecting a Keyword

You have been doing this for SEO purposes all the time. But now, we are talking about investing some money and effort when selecting a keyword. Many biggies have already invested a lot of money in paid search auctions, which could pull you away from your intentions.

But when it comes to choosing a keyword, it is more about the strategies that you apply, which will help you stay competitive with any biggie that comes your way. Start by focusing on keywords that would help you to get quality leads and thereby help with conversions.

When you utilize long-tail keywords, as part of this strategy, it will allow you to stay on the target in an affordable manner. Long-tail keywords usually have lesser competition, so traffic coming from these keywords would be lesser. You can restrict specific keywords using match types and negative keywords, which will help you save money on your keyword strategies.

2. Geography

Localization is one of the best ways to stay competitive. Geographic targeting will help you stay focused on a specific area. When you are focusing on a particular city or state, you need not go around choosing a bunch of keywords across the country. As you choose geographic parting, so is to focus on dayparting as well. When you choose dayparting, you can ensure that your ads run only at specific times a day. This will help to stay competitive because your ads would run only during that time of the day when you will make the most conversions.

3. Ad Extensions

Ad extensions refer to the additional information that you add to your ads. When you run an ad on a very limited basis, it is recommended that you add as much unique information about your business as possible. Adding all the important and unique information about your business is bound to make a lot of difference. Google comes with a range of ad extensions, including click-to-call links, reviews, site links, and location information, which will take people to the remaining pages of your website.

When you offer a lot of information, users get an opportunity to see different sides of your business and indulge in what they have been looking for. This opens up the gate to receiving an ad click, which would trigger sales.

4. Creating an Engaging Ad Copy

Firstly, we want to oust our competitors and reach to the top position. But more importantly, it is always ideal to show how you are unique. This can be achieved by writing ad copies that are enticing. When your ad comes with an interesting ad copy, it will surely get the click. Doing competitive research will help you to write some interesting ad copies.

5. Is it only Google?

Are you forgetting that there exists a paid search section outside Google? Many marketers claim that Google is one of the most expensive search engines. It might be because it gets most sites their traffic. But do not forget that there are more affordable search engines out there. This might include Bing, Ad marketplace, and so on. Though they might be cheaper, the quality of traffic cannot be guaranteed. However, you can give these sites a consideration in your strategies.

6. Know Your Audience

Your marketing efforts are targeted at your audiences. Understand that it might not always be that your resources would take you to the peak of success. But when you start considering your audiences as a resource, you would slowly start climbing the peak to success. When your target audiences matter and you start doing things for them, then they reach you out. This can be achieved only through proper research.

7. Content

Content is one of the other SEM strategies that matter. So your people would have doubts about how your products or services work. It is your responsibility to provide them with answers in the form of content. When you answer these questions, you will get better rankings for these queries inquired by people on Google. You would be considered genuine by search engines, which will drive more people to your site.

8. Produce Blog Content

When you have done your research well, you know what your customers are looking for. You can create blogs about it. You can even depend on the Keyword Planner Tool to gain a better understanding of the kind of keywords or phrases that your people are searching for and then create topics revolving around these. The best way to do this is by creating a blog editorial calendar, including 8 to 10 topics and then create content based on it.

When you optimize your keywords, there is more chance of increasing the website’s engagement. Implement the above-discussed search engine marketing strategies to increase your site’s engagement.

Acodez is a top-leading digital marketing company in India offering online marketing solutions to help our clients take their businesses to the next level. Our services include SEO, SMM, SEM, PPC, Email Marketing, Content Marketing, etc. We are also a renowned website design company offering all kinds of web design services at affordable prices to our clients in India and abroad. For further information, please contact us today.