Unlocking SEM Strategies: Boost Your Small Business with SEM and SEO

Is investing in SEM worth it for your own small business? You better believe it.

Within the world of digital marketing strategies, the fundamentals are akin to principles. Certainly, the subjective material (your words, your choices, your created ads) can affect Search Engine Marketing (SEM) success, but the question of whether or not you should invest in this type of digital marketing is non-negotiable. For your growing business to thrive, SEM is essential. 

In 2018, businesses will be committing more than 41% of their marketing budgets to digital marketing. Does your current marketing budget reflect this trend?

While the operating budget for a new and growing business can be quite small, leveraging the potential of SEM can help stabilize your business now and keep you on track for long-term growth. 

Ultimately, operating with a small business budget means that being smart with your money matters. Small businesses everywhere want new leads and increased profits. One way to leverage Pay-Per-Click (PPC) options is to understand just what is included in the SEM trends of this new year.

Decoding the ABCs

When it comes to digital marketing strategies, acronyms alone can throw the unassuming entrepreneur for a loop. Isn’t SEM the same thing as SEO? In fact, it’s not. These two, while different, certainly complement each other.

When putting together your online marketing strategy, SEM is an important component. Using SEM, you will be able to leverage customers and help them find their way to your website through search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing.

What’s the difference between Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

SEM includes paid search strategies, like pay-per-clicks (PPCs). In these kind of strategies, advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked upon. The fee they pay though means that individuals are clicking on their ads, which means they’re successfully drumming up interest that (hopefully) converts to new consumers, clients, and business profits.

SEO strategy focuses on increasing and improving your owned content to rank higher in organic search results.

 When deciding which route to explore for your own unique small business needs, consider implementing both strategies. Use SEO to work from the inside out, and use SEM to help individuals searching for what you’ve got, find you.

What’s the point of SEM?

SEM targets individuals for very specific reasons. The goal of SEM is to increase your brand’s visibility, boost engagement, drive traffic to your site, and help garner new business that will, in turn, boost revenue.

With SEM, you are able to target a very specific audience, and this audience can be tailored to fit your individual clientele.

What relevant keywords make the most sense for your business? What terms would someone use if they were seeking out your product/service?

As you consider the keyword selections that will help you organize your own advertising campaigns, keep these SEM options in mind. 

Segment by Match type: Match type is how precisely your chosen keywords must match what a Google user is actually typing into the search engine. A way to organize your ad campaigns is to separate them by match type, creating a variety of ad campaigns for Exact match keywords and another for Broad match keywords. Not everyone will be using the exact same words as they search, but for small businesses with a more limited budget, focusing on Exact match keywords can be the most effective strategy. This way you will get linked up with those individuals who are searching for exactly what you offer. #matchmadeinheaven

Single Keyword Ad Groups (SKAG) options may come at a lower cost, but it certainly has been gaining in usage recently. For these, each group of ads only needs to have one of the searched keywords and within each group there can be multiple match types. With these, you can improve upon your quality scores, average positions, and click-through-rates (CTRs).

Have an Eye on Your Competition

Mimicry is the highest form of flattery, right? It never hurts to see what strategies are working for your competition. Explore BuzzSumo, SEM Rush, SpyFu, Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer, Adwords’ Auction Insights, Seed Keywords, Tag Crowd, or WordStream’s Free Keyword Tool to see what other information you might be able to drum up to leverage your own success.

Optimizing Your Own Ad Campaigns

Once you have something that works, you will want to be certain that it is as optimized as it can be. Testing (and then testing again) will help ensure that your content is truly bringing in the results you want.

In A/B testing, you compare a variable within the same circumstances to see which one does better. Don’t get too curious. While this can seem like a dream come true, when testing, adjust one variable at a time. If you’re curious about which ad headline might be the most attention-grabbing, don’t also change the body test, the keyword, or the link included.

Taking Patience Into Account

The dawning of the Internet brings with it an incredible sense of...yes, impatience. As soon as you launch a 60% off sale, why aren’t people knocking down your doors to take advantage of it? Why aren’t people reacting to your entertaining social media post you spent 30 minutes crafting?

Search engine marketing is hard work and finding the right balance, using the metrics, and waiting for it to come together and work in your favor takes an intangible element that many of us are short on these days: patience.

Just as it took cumulative days, weeks, and years for you to develop your own business strategy and cultivate your brand, finding the perfect SEM strategy won’t happen overnight. Don’t expect it to.

Commit to positive results, continue to strengthen your understanding of the principles at work, dedicate yourself to the tiniest of details, keep learning, and put in the work to see your strategies through. When you begin to experience the feelings of success from leveraging what the Internet and SEM technologies can bring, you will see that SEM is truly remarkable and certainly worth it.