What is Search Engine Marketing?
If we wanted to rebuild the real hierarchical relationships, SEM is in fact the activity that encompasses SEO(Search Engine Optimization) and SEA (Search Engine Advertising), that is to say, the management of advertising campaigns and paid results on search engines.
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| Search Engine Marketing strategies |
The term SEM today refers to techniques aimed at bringing traffic by purchasing search keywords. SEM allows you to define a target of potential buyers, by defining a copy and a set of keywords, so as to reach users with the ad. The ads created will be displayed above the generated organic results, which will immediately increase visibility on the web. Today, the most used tool for SEM is undoubtedly Google Adwords, which manages almost all the searches carried out on the net. Developed in 2000, Google Adwords has improved from year to year and now makes it possible to create search and display campaigns characterized by a high level of personalization without risking losing ease of use. Something else to know,
Despite the dominance of Adwords, there are other equally effective and powerful tools to reach potential user-customers. Among the different pay-per-click tools, one of them is certainly BingAds: since it works very similar to Google's product, BingAds allows ads to be displayed on the pages of Microsoft search engines (bing.com ) and Yahoo (yahoo.com).
To start a campaign, you need to go through several steps:
These are just a few general guidelines to start with, but they can give you an idea of how to think about these tools. The steps are neither numerous nor particularly complex; it is better than to dwell on some tips to get the most out of these few (apparently) simple operations.
5 SEM TIPS TO OPTIMIZE CAMPAIGNS
1. The Push and Pull strategy
Pay-per-click activities are manifold, but we can identify two broader categories: search campaigns and display campaigns. The first big difference between the two types of ads is the approach taken to the user: the search ad is 'pulled' while the display ad is 'pushed'. If, in search mode, the user displays the ad as a direct consequence of his own active search (it is, therefore, he who "pulls" the ad towards him), in display ads, the ad is "pushed" towards him in the most diverse situations: watching a video, reading emails, browsing for a movie or a series.
The difference between push and pull, for marketers, is not thin: knowing both advertising channels helps identify and choose the best strategy based on needs, brand, and product. If we were to successively set up the activities to be carried out, it is advisable to give priority to a search campaign and then, as a second step, to create ad hoc banners and creativity for the poster campaigns.
2. Question of details: places, targets, and devices
For the strategy to bear fruit, to avoid excessive spending but above all to bring qualified traffic to the site, it is necessary to pay great attention to the definition and structuring of the campaign.
In anticipating the activity of selecting the words to buy and the ads to publish later, it is necessary to think about a few details: the place where the ads will be displayed, the type of users to target, or the presence on the different devices (desktop, mobile, tablet). These are just a few of the possible configurations with Adwords.
Let's take the next step: a clear and well-defined definition of what the user should look for and how they should do it in order to reach the ad. Once the words around which our activity is articulated have been divided into logical or thematic areas, it will be essential to create a structure capable of reflecting our choices while maintaining good consistency in the distribution of terms.
3. Keywords
To choose the terms that will generate the publication, it is necessary to think about the profile of the user: his age, his type of training, his knowledge of the field in which he works, and his habit of searching for terms online. These are all variables that have a significant impact on the way users perceive advertising and "interpret" it.
When defining the groups of words, it is, therefore, essential to think about the search terms that will be targeted.
4. The conversion goes through the landing page
Created the campaign and defined the search terms, it is the turn of the landing page, the realization of which is fundamental in web advertising for two reasons: one more strictly economic, the other linked to users.
We see the first: The landing page is part of a fundamental parameter in SEM, the quality score. The importance of this numerical value is directly related to the position occupied by the advertisement in the results pages and the cost paid for each click. The second reason relates to user-friendliness: when arriving on the site, the user must be able to immediately recognize the main element of the web page and must be accompanied to perform the action that the company has identified as the goal of the campaign. In a nutshell, conversion: filling out a form, subscribing to the newsletter, buying a product, and more, depending on the business objective.
The same attention should be given to desktop and mobile sites, as the tendency of consumers is not to recommend a brand with an unsatisfactory mobile site; moreover, as an additional side effect, these dissatisfied consumers will be led to turn to a competing site.
5. A tool accessible to all
There isn't a brand that can't get big results using pay-per-click tools. Whatever the market segment and the size of the company, the main thing is to be attentive before activating the campaigns and to carefully assess the potential of the tool for each company.
Whatever business activities or businesses need different types of users, some of them can be adapted to exploit the traffic collected on the web by pay-per-click campaigns, others not. It's up to every brand to have the foresight to analyze campaign results and understand whether the rewards are worth the effort, how much to invest, and dare to take full advantage of the potential of search engine marketing.
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