Search Engine Marketing, also known as SEM, is a marketing strategy that can boost your sales. You probably already know about tri-media marketing namely television, newspaper or print ads and radio. These traditional advertising reigned supreme for decades, that is until the advent of the internet. These advertising strategies can be useful however, SEM shows more promise especially now with the rise of social media.
How does SEM Work?
Let’s take a look at how a customer shops or searches for information these days. Here’s Betty, your average teenager who just got a sizable sum as a gift from her parents. Now she’s hankering for a pair of ‘animal print mini-skirts’. She could head over to a nearby mall. However, as Betty is your everyday teen who has a smartphone, she chooses to search for an online sale instead. Simply typing ‘animal print mini skirts’ on her phone allows her to browse hundreds if not thousands of stores displaying the item she’s looking for.
As she enters the keywords on her favorite search engine, she’ll be shown search engine results pages (SERPs). Each page will list a dozen websites arranged according to the relevancy of her query. It’s highly possible that her search could generate at least a hundred SERPs amounting to thousands of websites all selling the item she wants.
As a typical human being with a short attention span, she chooses the first SERP and probably will only explore the first five websites. If you happen to sell animal print mini skirts online, then the first SERP is where you want your website to be. The process to do that is through search engine optimization or SEO. You could do SEO on your own for free. However, search engine companies also want to make money for their own too. That’s why their first SERP now has paid advertisement slots that could trump your free SEO efforts. This is where SEM comes in.
Where to find SEM services?
The process of doing SEM can be very extensive. It’s a good thing that there are affordable SEO services from companies that also do SEM. Basically, the SEO company will formulate an SEM and then fine-tune your website for the products/keywords you’re aiming for. Then you go to a popular search engine and start bidding for the keywords that are related to your business or product.
SEM, PPC and Paid Search Ads
Bidding on ads doesn’t work the way you think how an auction works. Essentially, you’re given an estimated amount of how much you’re going to pay per click (PPC) of a customer. For example, you could input at least 10 cents per click. Looks small but considering the fact that some keywords might be clicked by at least 1,000 users, you’re looking at a hefty $100 price tag. You have to weigh the costs of paying that $100 to find a percentage from the 1,000 users that will make a purchase on your website.
If that’s the case, then why not go as low as 1 cent per click? That’s where the bidding comes into play. It’s highly possible that someone wants the keywords you want and then bids at 50 cents per click. The search engine algorithm will then weigh your bids, apply some random calculations and your website might show up on the SERPs top rank every now and then.
Trusting SEO Companies
Always remember to balance the costs of the ad campaign and your ROI because you could lose money instead of earning. Doing things for free could end up with you going bankrupt. Get help from the experts. Don’t worry, there are affordable SEO that will help you boost your website. A good consultancy like SEO Global Inc. has multiple marketing strategies to help you corner the internet market.
Show up on SERPs, be viral and have your business discovered by the right people. Visit their webpage and book an appointment and let them help you with your internet marketing needs. You’ll find their SEO pricing to be competitive while delivering the best results.