What is Search Engine Marketing?

SEM or Search Engine Marketing is a very effective way to improve your ranking on search engines like Google and drive qualified traffic to your website. Investing in SEM is a great way to increase brand awareness and increase sales.

Search engine marketing definition by Search4find.

SEM is a type of digital marketing strategy that focuses on getting your business or client to appear on the first page of search engine results, if not the first position. Its purpose is to generate more traffic to your website, which you can then convert.

What is Search Engine Marketing?

Search engine marketing includes all the tools, techniques, and strategies that help improve the visibility of websites and webpages on search engines such as Google and other similar websites.

There are two ways for the result to be displayed at the top.

• Organic or natural results are usually displayed in the middle of the page and selected by Google algorithms. This algorithm evaluates both the site’s relevance (the quality of the content and how well it responds to a particular search) and the site’s authority (links to other sites).
• Paid results are also displayed at the top of the page, but in a column on the right. Unlike organic results, the advertiser has to pay a fixed amount for each click on their ad. To buy advertising space in search engines, it is necessary to use a platform like Google Ads.

In theory, search engine marketing includes both types of results. But in practice, techniques aimed at improving organic rankings fall under the SEO category, and techniques that appear among paid results are classified as SEM. To avoid confusion, we will simply use the term SEM or Search Engine Marketing for the latter.

Search engine marketing is therefore a set of tools, techniques, and strategies aimed at optimizing search engine advertising, appearing in the first place, achieving low cost per click, and maximizing the conversion of these ads. The most well-known and widely used SEM platform is Google Ads, but there are other solutions such as Bing Ads.

Search engine marketing concept

• Keywords: These are words that users enter into a search engine to request specific ads or search results to be displayed. It doesn’t have to be a word. In fact, it is common to use groups of words or phrases, such as B. “By Nike shoes” or “What is the best accounting software”.
• Match: When you set up a campaign in Google Ads, you need to define how closely the keywords you choose match the words users use when entering their search engine queries. We do. This is called “consistency”. For example, if you choose broad-match keywords, your ad will appear when users search for synonyms or terms similar to your keywords. If you choose Exact Match, your ad will only appear when users enter certain keywords into a search engine.
• Text ads: This is the standard type of ad that appears on search engines, although there are now several options, such as B Shopping ads. Text ads typically include a headline, a customizable display URL, and a short description.
• Ad groups: In Google Ads, an ad group consists of multiple ads with the same keywords. That way you can see which of them is most effective.
• Campaigns: In Google Ads, a campaign is like an “umbrella” that organizes different ad groups with similar goals. For example, if you sell school supplies online, one campaign might include an ad group for textbooks, another might include backpacks, and a third might focus on art supplies.
• Landing page: this is the web page to which users are directed after clicking on the advertisement. To get good results from search engine marketing, the page needs to be optimized for conversions and prompt the user to take a specific action (for example, fill out a form to download an eBook). The keywords displayed ads, and landing page all need to be consistent to ensure a good user experience.
• Search Network: This is where your ad appears. The most common options are in the upper-right corner of the results page, but you can also find them on other sites like YouTube.
• Impressions: This shows the number of times an ad has appeared.
• Clicks: The number of times the ad was clicked
• CTR: Percentage of clicks on total impressions.
• CPC: Average cost per click.
• Quality Score: This is Google’s score for ads and keywords that affect cost-per-click. This score is determined based on the ad’s relevance, click-through rate, and landing page experience. The goal of the system is to rank high-quality ads higher and lower the cost per click.

What added value can SEM bring to your company?

Generate high-quality traffic
Generating traffic organically can be a very lengthy and tedious process, the results of which can only be seen in the long term. With search engine marketing, you can speed up the process and drive users to your website from the very beginning. You can also be sure that these users are interested in your offer because they discovered it themselves.

Generate visibility
Appearing in the top results of Google and other search engines links your brand to a specific need, even if the user doesn’t click on it the first time.

Generate conversions
The ultimate goal of Google Ads and other search engine marketing tools is to improve business results. To do this, you need to create optimized landing pages that lead users on the path to conversion.

Make the most of your budget
One of the great advantages of search engine marketing is that it is a suitable solution for any size business as it is very cost-effective with minimal investment. On the other hand, as your brand grows, you can increase the investment and complexity of your campaigns to keep up with your momentum. Plus, because you only pay when you get results (in the form of clicks), you can be sure that your budget is being used effectively.

Get measurable results
Search engine marketing solutions like Google Ads provide tons of metrics about your campaigns and let you know what’s happening at all times. This way it is very easy to course correct if necessary and get better results.

Search Engine Marketing or SEM has great potential to help businesses achieve their goals faster and at scale. To make the most of this, it is ideal to have experts who have extensive experience in establishing a brand on Google. If you want to get all the benefits of search engine marketing for your brand, contact us!