Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Search Engine Marketing or SEM is a digital marketing tactic
which focuses on the promotion of your website by increasing its visibility in
search engine result pages (SERPs). With many businesses out there all
grappling for an equivalent eyeball, search engine marketing is the effective
way to promote your products, grow your business, and drive more traffic to your
website.
With SEM, we can enhance the visibility of our content in search
engine results pages (SERPs) and this can be achieved through paid advertising.
The target focus on keywords in order to make sure that when a user searches
for those terms, they see an ad from the brand, and as long as the user clicks on ads the brand is charged.
Google Ads being the most popular paid search platform contribute
to major portion followed by Microsoft Advertising, and a significant portion of ads on Yahoo.
Beyond that, there are a number of PPC platforms and
advertising options on the major social networks.
Initially, search engine optimization and paid search
advertising come under one umbrella – Search engine marketing (SEM).
Over the period of time Search Engine Marketing solely known
for paid search.
SEM vs SEO: Similarities
Both SEM and SEO:
1.
Help your brand appear in the search result
2.
Drive more traffic to your website
3.
Require knowing your audience
4.
Use keyword research to uncover popular search
term
5.
Target specific keyword
6.
Require testing and continuous optimization
SEM vs SEO: Differences
Sno. |
Differences |
SEM |
SEO |
1 |
Tactics |
Use paid tactics to gain visibility in
search engine result pages |
Use organic tactics to gain visibility
in search engine result pages |
2 |
Search Result |
Include "Ad" designation and
have Ad extensions |
Appear as a true and unfiltered result and
have featured snippets |
3 |
Cost |
Pay each time user clicks |
Pay nothing |
4 |
Visibility |
Shown to select target audience |
Shown to anyone |
5 |
Impact |
Immediate |
Time taken |
6 |
Testing |
Good for testing |
Not that effective |
7 |
Click-through rate |
Lower |
Higher |
SEM vs SEO: Which is better?
It is easier to decide which one of these works best for
your website. Some of the criteria that can help you to decide are as below:
1.
What’s the competition in your industry like?
2.
How well do you know your market?
3.
How long are your customer’s buying cycle?
4.
What’s the average cost-per-click in your industry?
5.
How old is your business?
6.
What’s the current state of your website SEO?
Bottom Line
Being a marketer, I may argue that organic SEO is a best
approach, but one can clearly conclude that SEM cannot succeed without the use
of organic SEO. Organic SEO takes more time to show results but in the end it
will be less costly and you will establish a search credibility that you might
not get with SEM.
SEM Keyword targeting
Target keywords in SEM guide search platform when to show
your ads and whom to show. There are
different types of keyword targeting strategies:
·
Location targeting sets ads - These are the ads to show to people who are
within a certain ZIP code or geographical area.
·
Ad schedule targeting sets ads- Ads categorize to
show at certain times of the day or during specific days of the week.
·
Demographic targeting sets ads – Types of ads to
show to people who fit certain demographic criteria based on age, gender and
preferences.
·
Device targeting sets ads – Ads to show on specific
devices such as mobile phones, desktops, or tablets.
SEM Ad Copy
“SEM ad copy” burlesques organic search results with options
for showing additional information. A standard ad usually includes headlines, a
description, and a website URL. You can also add:
• Site link extensions
• Callout extensions
• Call extensions
• Message extensions
• Location extensions
• Advertiser ratings
• Price extensions
• Structured snippet extensions
Improve Quality
Score
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