Online ads have become an essential part of any enterprise’s digital campaign. If you are looking to increase your business’ reach, and web visibility and attract visitors to your website, but are new to Search Engine Marketing, this article will provide you with essential tips and guide you toward your first successful Search Engine Marketing campaign.
SEM and SEO-
First, let us know what SEM and SEO are.
SEM focuses on improving paid advertising results, whereas SEO focuses on improving organic results. Both paid search and organic search are important in digital marketing. To make digital marketing strategies work brilliantly, most businesses deploy both SEM and SEO in synergy across multiple online channels.
SEO is a strong means to organically attract visitors to your website, while SEM is an efficient way to improve conversion and customer base through paid advertising.
One of the biggest advantages of search engine marketing is that it offers businesses an opportunity to position their ads toward interested customers, bring them to the landing page, and convert leads that are already thinking about making purchases.
Now that we have understood what SEM is and why is it important, here are the fundamental steps to launch your first successful SEM campaign.
Evaluate your preparation –
Before you launch any digital marketing campaign, you must do some groundwork. You need to spend time understanding your business and know your strengths and key differentiators. Take a wide look at your company and find the brand identity that you want to showcase to the world through paid advertising.
Check whether your landing page and website are ready enough to welcome visitors. Also, tag the areas that require paid search and organic search respectively.
2. Set clear and realistic goals –
Set goals that are time bound and aligned with your budget. In your first marketing campaign, don’t fall prey to the mindset that whatever results you get would be better than what you have now. This approach would drive you away from setting clear goals and eventually, you will be trapped by vague results.
Also, determine the key performance indicators that you will investigate while evaluating the performance of your paid advertising.
Additionally, research and understand the performance of other campaigns being run in your industry such that you end up setting realistic expectations and goals for your campaign and securing an adequate budget.
3. Know your customer and competition –
Having a clear understanding of your customers will help you attract visitors to your website. Know their needs and which answers they are looking for on a search engine result page (SERP). When you know your customers, you are more likely to develop campaigns that strongly resonate with them.
This involves doing consumer research and market research to understand your customer for creating the most accurate buyer’s personas. It Is important to know who your target customer is and analyze their buying journey from discovery to purchase.
It is also important to know which channels will be most effective to reach out to these customers.
Understand your market competition, know their strengths, and their digital marketing strategy. Since you will be committing your precious time, money, and resources to develop this campaign, you need to be well-prepared to be able to generate the best results for yourself and create the best experiences for your customers.
4.Find Keywords for ads-
One of the key objectives of your paid advertising campaign is to earn clicks and attract visitors to your website. Having the right set of keywords is the first step toward targeting your audience, thus special emphasis needs to be given to find keywords for ads that work best for you.
The keywords you select need to be relevant to your business, need to strike the right chords with your target customers, and enable accurate prediction of words they will use when searching for the products or services which you offer.
Additionally, you need to keep in mind the price you end up paying for each keyword depending on the bidding. Detailed keyword research should help you identify negative keywords, which is important to know which terms can be avoided and excluded from your campaign.
You need to focus on a logical grouping of the keywords you select, this helps you gain better click-through rates (CTR), and helps you to reduce your pay-per-click (PPC), to achieve the best results
5. Optimize your Website and Design your landing page –
A paid advertising campaign on the search engine result page (SERP) can result in longer engagement when the landing page is smooth with a simple layout. Make sure that all the highlighted information and calls to action are at the immediate fold of the website on the desktop and within one scrolling action on mobile.
To optimize your website make it SEO friendly, ensure smooth navigation, and improve the website speed. Also, monitor which page on your website is getting more traffic, test your ads for that web page and redirect visitors to it while creating ads.
6. Test your ads before launch –
Ensure that the ad copy you make is targeted, engaging and catchy. Most of the platforms let you test your ads before formally launching them. Putting ads in front of the sample audience and asking for feedback will give you an initial insight into the audience’s response.
Try to test your ads on all those channels and platforms where you are going to launch your search engine marketing campaign. Run only those parts of the campaign that are vital and stimulating. This will surely give you a fair idea of the appeal, believability, and relevance an ad contains for your target audience.
7. Launch your SEM campaign-
Firstly, create an ad group based on the keywords used and the platforms where you are going to launch your search engine marketing campaign. Each platform has a different set of target audiences and different times to reach the audience.
To earn clicks and acquire a considerable amount of web visibility your campaign launch should be in synergy across all the platforms. When the audience finds you on multiple channels in the same period, it makes them curious about your company. This web visibility motivates them to click on your ad and arrive at your landing page.
Additionally, try to create an ad campaign around the same narrative or story that resonates with your brand.
8. Monitor your results-
There are multiple ways by which you can easily evaluate the progress of your search engine marketing campaign. Google Analytics is one of the most helpful tools in this matter.
Make a detailed and comprehensive tracking framework where apart from paid search conversions you can evaluate the engagement across all the channels. Make a calendar to track monthly results based on goals and KPIs you had determined earlier.
The digital world around us is a nexus of visibility, presence, attention, and limelight, and search engine marketing is one of the best ways to leverage this potential. The daily online hours of people have seen a drastic shift, therefore the chances of knowing your brand online are more potent.
Try making a huge brand presence using the above steps and make your product, a brand.