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Irrespective of the business domain, it is always the top 10 businesses that attract customers and make profits. Google has a record of handling over 3.5 billion searches daily out of which only 0.63% of Google users switch to the second SERP whereas businesses appearing on the first page have a CTR ranging from 31.73 percent to 3.09 percent. This means your presence on the first page of Google search is vital for business success. Search Engine Marketing helps you secure top ranks on SERPs which makes you the first business to catch the attention of your target customers. Additionally, the close rate of SEO leads is 14.6%, leaving behind all other forms of lead generation.
However, the scope of search engine marketing isn’t limited to exposure alone. It brings a plethora of benefits to businesses which we will discuss at length in this post.
What is Search Engine Marketing (SEM)?
Search Engine Marketing is a form of paid marketing that enhances your chances to market your product or services ahead of your competitors. It works above and beyond the scope of organic search and establishes you on top of SERPs irrespective of your organic reach.
A thoughtfully developed SEM strategy has a wide range of merits including better reach & traffic, enhances engagement with target customers, a boost in brand awareness, and much more. Think about the ads that appear at the top of search result pages when you search for a keyword. SEM places you among these ads by utilizing the search engine results as you bid on specific keywords and search terms. There is a price associated with each bid which you must pay only when a user clicks on your ad.
SEO vs. SEM: the difference
SEO & SEM are two terms that often confuse businesses first venturing into the digital marketing space. The key difference between Search Engine Marketing and Search Engine Optimization is that the latter focuses on optimizing the website to secure better ranking on SERPs and welcome traffic while the former utilizes the best of paid search and organic search tactics for better traffic and visibility. In other words, SEM combines SEO & PPC to get traffic from search engines.
10 benefits of Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
While SEO remains the ultimate tool to enhance traffic to your website and conversion ratio, it takes time to build your reach through organic approaches. If you want to leapfrog the market space or level the competition, SEM is the right approach. If you utilize SEOM tools and strategies mindfully, there are many benefits behind SEM.
1. Increase in Brand Awareness
Search Engine Marketing is an excellent tool to beat the competition and set yourself apart. The paid ads used under SEM play a vital role in creating your brand awareness as they create an impression of your brand which lasts forever.
A Google Ad puts you on top of the SERP which makes you the first business to get noticed. Even if the searcher does not click on your ad, the recall rate and awareness about your brands make a permanent note on users’ memory.
A study performed by Ipsos MediaCT in collaboration with Google concluded that search ads have a significant effect on brand awareness. Brand awareness rises by 6.6% when search ads are used.
2. Location-based target ads
Google is focused on local SEO like never before and the aim is to help a business target local audiences better. In the last two years, ‘near me’ and ‘where to buy’ search results have grown by 200%.
Buyers trust local businesses more and the chances of you getting clicks are higher because you are offering the desired services/ products in their area. If your target audience is located near you, SEM allows you to create location-based ads.
3. Better and quick visibility
Businesses find SEO frustrating because it demands a lot of effort, energy, and time to generate visibility. Search Engine Marketing in contrast offers prompt results. The ad is the first thing a user notices as soon as they search and get to learn about your brand, product, and services. However, SEM is only a short-term strategy to generate visibility, unlike SEO which delivers long-lasting results.
4. Easy to manage
SEM engine marketing primarily involves using Google Ads for paid marketing. Now, these ads are very user-friendly and even a beginner can easily create and manage ads using the platform. This makes SEM a very user-friendly approach to marketing.
Scheduling ads, stopping a campaign, or running them as per the marketing budget changes, and creating new campaigns are easier through Google Ads service.
However, this does not mean that you, as a novice, can begin your SEM today and expect results without any hassle. A sound understanding of SEM as well as Google Ads is crucial to succeeding with SEM.
5. Increase in traffic instantly
Because you are the first business users to notice on SERP, your chances to get a click are high. However, to earn the click you need to have an efficient ad copy. Often, businesses struggling to generate traffic through SEO find SEM very gratifying because the traffic influx after using SEM is instant. An organic approach like SEO pays you in time but it must be the primary target as Google weighs it more. But, till the time you start getting substantial traffic through SEO, SEM generates supplemental traffic to run your business and score profitability.
6. Better ability to reach your target audience
Earlier we discussed that SEM majorly supports Local searches and presents you in front of the audience that is in your vicinity. However, the benefits of SEM cover more as it ideally places you in front of your target audience.
Your target customers may comprise individuals of different ages, genders, races, and socioeconomic groups. Based on these factors, the search keywords they use differ.
If you are a pro with your keyword search, using these keywords in the ad copy will help you instantly connect with relevant traffic and drive them to your website. Your keyword search results widely determine your success in the field of SEM so make sure you put in the best efforts while performing the keyword search.
7. SEM is the most conversion-friendly approach
As a business, your prime objective is to earn money. However, in digital marketing, several other conversion aspects must be considered. You must be on a constant hunt for new subscribers, email signups, and newsletter signups as well as active participation in contests, forums, and discussions on different platforms. SEM is known to be a conversion-driving approach and hence marketers benefit from it in many ways.
What makes SEM a conversion-friendly approach is the link between paid ads and landing pages. The ads are designed in a way that they lead to a conversion-friendly page or directly to the sales page. This helps you get your customer to the end of the tunnel and close deals faster.
8. Cost-effectiveness through Pay-per-click
SEM is a paid marketing tool wherein you can create and it will appear on SERPs for free. However, as soon as someone clicks on your ad, you are charged a fee. This is a very reasonable approach to earn clicks and at the same time increase your visibility and brand awareness in front of your target audience. Even the click for which you pay comes cheap as most likely the user intends to complete the transaction.
9. Consistent results
If you run effective ad campaigns, Search Engine Marketing brings a consistent influx of traffic to your website. If you continue to run ads, the drop in traffic is the last concern for you.
The more ads you run, the better you understand your target audience and areas of improvement.
10. SEM offers measurable results
The results of the marketing campaigns under SEM are easy to measure. While we struggle to measure the results from ad campaigns in the real world, platforms like Google Ads make it very simple to monitor the progress. It eliminates the need to conduct surveys, focus groups, and polls as it has built-in measurement metrics.
With Google Ads measuring feature, you can quickly learn about the best-performing keywords, impressions, as well as click-through rates.
The measurable aspect of Google Ads gives businesses the ability to track the progress of their ad campaigns and run or stop an ad accordingly.
Search Engine Marketing is a vast concept, and these are some of the many benefits this marketing approach has to offer. It establishes a connection between you and the target customer while consistently sending traffic to your website. An effective SEM strategy can help you reap all these benefits without hassle and boost your conversion rate.