SEM or Search Engine Marketing is an important component of digital marketing in this era. It is a strategy that involves setting up paid advertisements on Google to put your business in front of online users.
If you’re not using SEM to boost your business online, then you’re missing out on the opportunity of getting a whole lot of online traffic and sales. Read on to learn more about the benefits of SEM.
1. Drive Quality Traffic to the Website
The first and most significant advantage of SEM is its ability to bring a number of high-quality traffic to your website. Think of your website as a 247 open store that showcases all your brand story, products and services, I’m sure you want to invite as many visitors to your website as possible. However, with Search Engines Results Pages (SERPs) that could go on for more than 100 pages, it is quite near impossible to rank on the first page with just SEO in your belt. By utilizing SEM, you’ll stand a chance to get your landing page or website up to first place on SERPs.
Moreover, this traffics are not just any kind of general traffics. They are visitors who are potentially interested in your products as they proactively search up the keywords that you are targeting. This means that they already have the intention and need to learn more about the products or services that you offer.
2. Increase Brand Awareness
If your business is new or small, SEM is able to increase your brand awareness. Whether you are setting up Google Ads by yourself or by hiring a marketer, you are able to insert your brand name and unique selling proposition (USP) on the headlines, descriptions, display URLs or extended Google Ads. This allows immediate visibility and exposure for your brand by putting them in front of your audience.
Not only that but SEM has the flexible option of choosing how to present your Ads. For example, the typical text ads, image ads and shopping ads. Even if the search engine users didn’t click on your ads, they would get to see them too. In the SEM terms, that counted as an impression for your ads.
3. Instant Results
Compare to SEO, which is slow and steady, SEM could put your brand right in front of the right crowd at the right time, getting you instant results and engagement. All you need to do is optimize your website’s user experience, research the relevant keywords, bid the right amount and you’ll be sure to land yourself on the top rank of the result page.
Want to learn more about Ad Auction and Quality Scores? Head over here.
4. High-targeted Ads
When you’re creating your SEM Ads, you could be as specific as possible to target your ideal customers. Not only can you choose the language of your ads, but you could also target where you want your ads to appear. For instance, you have the option to specify the country, city, and region of the location of your ads.
Furthermore, you could segment your ads into the type of audience you want to attract according to their gender, age range, interest and browsing habits. This is the reason why there is a higher percentage of converting sales from the traffic coming in through SEM.
5. Measurable
With SEM, you could take things into your own hands by testing and measuring the performances of your ad campaigns. Effective tools such as Google Ads allow you to dive deep into the detailed analytics of your ad campaigns. The comprehensive information of your ad campaigns includes things like impression, CTR, CPC, Clicks and so on.
Other than that, you are encouraged to do A/B testing with your ad campaigns to pinpoint what works and what doesn’t. This could further help you to make the decision of whether you should try another SEM strategy, ad method or finetune your ad copy.
6. Cost-effective
As appose to traditional advertising like billboards and TVC, SEM is more cost-effective and accessible. It is not merely easy to manage and set up, but you also have the total freedom to control the campaigns in terms of the starting and ending time as well as the amount of budget you are comfortable with.
You only need to pay whenever there is an interaction between the users and your ads. This means that only when users click on your ads or watch the video you’ve created, do you have to pay. In fact, you can stop any campaigns of your own without time constraints.
In conclusion, SEM brings more to the plate than you could ever wish for. However, it can be intimidating and confusing to start if you are a beginner. That’s why it’s always good to check in with an advertising expert to kickstart your advertising campaigns.
