The Ultimate Guide: How to get started with Search Engine Marketing?

What is search engine marketing?

Search Engine Marketing is the process in which the individual gets into ‘hunt mode’ on the web. This reacts as an indication to the search engine that the person is looking for an information. This provides a hint to the marketer that the person is in any one of the stages of the buyer’s cycle, which is the start, middle and the end.

Let us have a deep research on what is Search Engine Marketing and how it works effectively,

Search engine marketing:

Search Engine Marketing is a whole term that includes Search Engine Optimization and paid activities. Most industries started to make use of SEM as it included both SEO and paid activities which helped their market research more convenient.

Search-engine-marketing

SEM for beginners:

Search Engine Marketing is a tool that is used to promote businesses through paid ads which appear in search engine results. Ad makers rely on keywords and they bid on specific keywords that are commonly used by customers on Google and Bing. This helps advertisers to make it up on search results.

These ads are often termed as Pay-Per-Click ads. And they come in different formats such as, text-based, product listing ads which are more visual. The product-based ads are more effective as they provide a brief description of the product.

The best advantage of using SEM is that it helps marketers to put on ads that grab the interest of visitors to buy them in an instance. There is no optional advertising medium that helps marketers in a better way.

Major strategies for search engine marketing:

There are two major aspects of search engine marketing:

  • Search engine optimization
  • Paid search marketing

Search engine optimization

Search Engine Optimization helps web searches to rank through natural searches and not through paid results. Many people are good at differentiating Paid vs Organic searches. And people are able to understand which would work better and they give priority to natural search options.

It is possible for website owners to improve search ranking through meta tags in website code, relevant content and we connect through quality resources.

Paid marketing

Paid marketing is through pay-per-click or pay-per-action. This helps search engine to display your website on search engine results and you need to pay when a click is done. Google Adwords program displays your ad on the top right side of the search results. There are chances that Google displays your ad on websites that run Adsense Program. There are various other options PPC ads that are run as Facebook Ads

Difference between SEM and SEO:

Search Engine Optimization, these practices are generally based on search engines but they are not paid as SEM are. The strategy that helps optimization is by having relevant content on your website with the rich keyword in it.

Both SEO and SEM are interrelated to one another. SEO is capable of driving natural traffic which is organic, whereas paid ads is a cost-effective way of generating traffic at the bottom of the tunnel.

How does it work for your business?

Some people are very good at analyzing how it works for their business. And that is why such people are able to utilize SEM in an effective manner. Let me tell you for what reasons people use SEM, the following are the reasons that people use SEM.

  • Sell products
  • Building brand
  • Inspire your competitor’s traffic
  • Generate Leads

Now let us see how to make use of Search Engine Marketing Effectively.

To get started:
Based on the search strategy you need to make changes to your website;

#1 Design your search strategy:

Make sure that you come to a conclusion based on your long time and short time goals. Though it may take time for results in organic rankings, it is easy to launch paid search campaign at once. You need to have a few more thing into consideration, your budget, marketing objectives, and the amount of traffic you need. On reviewing the abilities and disabilities you can frame your search strategy.

#2 Generate keywords:

Keywords are the essential tool generate traffic. You need be aware of what your customers are looking out for. So it is good that before you start your campaign you need to find the keywords for which you need to run your ads. You can make use of tools to generate keywords.

How to process SEM keyword research:

It is so much essential to run a keyword research process before you could process ad campaigns. You need to find those keywords targeting your set of audience and relevant to your business. The only way to perform keyword research analysis is through Keyword research tool.

You could make use of either paid version or free tools to process keyword research. Either of the ways is effective. But paid version is highly recommended as they come up with better results and search volume.

To initiate keyword research, you need to enter the relevant word for your business and that your targeted customers are looking out for. Now you will find ideas that are closely related to search engine marketing campaigns.

In addition to finding keywords you need to bid on you need to have a keen research to exclude negative keywords from your campaign. Negative keywords are the ones that are unlikely to result in conversions. The concept is so-called “search intent”. You get to know the exact intention of your target audience and present them the way they actually expect.

The following are the examples of high intent keyword,

  • Buy
  • Deals
  • Coupons
  • Free shopping
  • Discount

The following tree structure could help you better understand on keyword and account structure:

SEM-Process-Flow

  • The SEM ad-auction:

The most lasting failure of Search Engine Marketing is the highest advertising budget wins. Though highest advertising budget is beneficial specifically for targeting on a high competitive keyword. But that is not going to make it up for a successful search engine marketing. As the ads undergo ad-auction process before they could appear in search results.

Now let us have a look on Ad-auction,

  • What is ad-auction?

The process of estimation of ads that will appear on the screen and the amount you could earn through it. The same way it determines the price that an advertiser is willing to pay for a click on ads or maybe for the impression that appears on the Adsense page.

  • How does it work?

Ad-auction takes place whenever the search query is entered on the search tab. To appear on the ad-auction advertisers find a set of keywords, and how much they would wish to bid on those keywords. In case if Google finds that the keyword you have bid for has appeared on the user search query then your ads are automatically added to the ad-auction.

  • How to win on ad auction?

It is not that easy to get your ad keyword to appear in all search queries. As ad-auction looks out for various factors which could determine your ad appears on SERP. And that not all keyword has the intent of appearing in all commercial searches. There are two main factors that Google evaluates is the maximum bid and quality score.

Quality Score is a metric which depends on the complete quality of advertisement. And Maximum bid is the max.amount specified for pay-per-click. Both together determines the Ad-Rank.

#3 Upgrade your website:

Ensure that the content on the website is present in an organized manner
Make your content keyword rich
Discard technologies that prevent your content to be read by search engines
Submit your website on important directories for better search results

#4 Produce inbound links:

Any search engine could reward you only when your website is valuable. If there are links passing through your website then search engines would consider your website more valuable. More links on your website would help your website rank higher. If you wish to generate links from top companies, recognized directories, and reputable organizations, then you need to have quality content on your website.

#5 Execute additional internet campaigns:

  • Make use of social media
  • Include blogs on your website
  • RSS Feed could help you generate content and distribute them across websites
  • Create Press Releases on web

#6 Now check your paid search:

  • To kick-start, your paid search do the following,
  • You need to create landing pages for each campaign
  • Generate ads
  • Developing an account on Search Engine platforms is really important as people look out for it
  • Create a campaign on that network
  • Now track your results

Final word:

Now you are almost done with the process of Search Engine Marketing. The Complete guide would have helped you understand and differentiate between Search Engine Marketing and Optimization process. Set goals to convert your target audience into customers and keep optimizing your website for better SEM campaign.

Get set and Kick-start your ad-campaigns in a better way. If I have missed any valuable points do let me know through your comments.