5 Best Practices for a Stellar SEM Strategy

“It’s much easier to double your business by doubling your conversion rate than doubling your traffic.”

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is an effective way of driving business growth by maximizing conversions.

It enables you to increase search engine visibility, get a competitive advantage, and drive a higher ROI.

In this blog post, we bring you 5 best practices to help you build a stellar SEM strategy and maximize conversions.

5 Best Practices for a Stellar SEM Strategy

1. Create Engaging Ad Copy

“A good advertisement is one which sells the product without drawing attention to itself.”

Effective ad copy consists of a captivating heading, engaging context, and a compelling CTA.

In order to create ad copy that has these elements, you need to master the art of selecting the right keywords.

This means choosing those relevant to the product or service you’re offering and including appropriate ones in ad copy.

Understanding your target audience and their pain points will help you convey how your product or service will help them solve challenges.

And your Call-To-Action (CTA) is from where you’ll drive conversions.

This means that it must be creative and engaging so that your target audience clicks through.

In fact, CTA content and design shouldn’t just be appealing but drive the user journey towards solving for the customer’s pain points.

2. Align Your SEM Strategy With Business Objectives

Did you know that for every dollar that a business spends on Google Search and Ads, it makes $8 worth of profit?

It’s therefore important to make sure that your SEM strategy is aligned with business goals.

For instance, if you aim to build brand awareness, acquire new customers, drive sales, and venture into new markets, then your SEM strategy should be able to fulfill these objectives.

Bid on branded, non-branded, and competitor keywords in order to develop awareness about the products and services you offer.

Offer solutions that make it easier for users to make buying decisions.

3. Invest in Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC)

PPC advertising enables you to use your keyword strategy for placing bids in the sponsored ad section in search results.

In fact, traffic generated from PPC advertising brings 50% more conversions as compared to organic advertising.

Here are the major PPC platforms on which you can run successful ad campaigns:

1) Google Ads: The largest pay-per-click platform, Google Ads offers PPC advertising on Google search engine results, as well as non-search websites, mobile apps, and videos.

2) Microsoft Advertising: Formerly known as Bing Ads, Microsoft’s PPC advertising platform offers advertising on Bing (Microsoft’s search network), as well as search partner sites such as Yahoo.

3) Amazon Advertising: Amazon Advertising is one of the fastest growing eCommerce platforms. It is a great avenue for advertisers to display shopping campaigns and products on Amazon’s shopping network.

4. Implement Geo-Targeting

Geo-targeting enables you to reach out to prospects and customers in a targeted geographical location.

It is especially useful for retail store owners, since it involves local awareness advertising.

This means that you can search for nearby customers using your physical location.

Here’s how Burger King came up with a unique kind of geo-targeting.

They offered a Whopper for 1 cent to anyone who downloaded the Burger King app and happened to be near the local McDonald’s, or visited the outlet.

In fact, advertisers are launching campaigns in order to sell hot food and beverages to customers living in cold regions, and vice versa.

5. Research Keywords

The basis of search engine marketing lies in how effectively you research keywords and incorporate them into ad campaigns.

Therefore, a strong keyword management strategy requires you to identify relevant keywords and phrases.

Use ones that you think your prospects and customers will search for.

Tools such as SpyFu, KeywordSpy, and Google Keyword Planner will help you find relevant keywords.

In addition to this, use search volume to enable your ad to reach a considerable target audience.

Avoid using keywords with low search volume and target those with comparatively higher search volume.

Wrapping Up

Search engine marketing is a highly-effective way of conveying your message to prospects and customers.

In this blog post, we looked at how creating engaging ad copy, aligning your strategy with business objectives, investing in PPC, implementing geo-targeting, and researching keywords helps you drive successful SEM.

At Grazitti, we know just how important it is to be able to drive an effective strategy with SEM best practices.

Want to Build a Stellar SEM Strategy. Contact us!