Basic Guide On SEM: What It Is And Its Advantages

There is a large amount of literature on what SEM is, with tips and examples of how to carry out search engine advertising strategies. The SEM is carried out to improve business benefits through a high increase in the conversion rate thanks to an investment in the advertising environment of Google or Social Media.

This strategy is intended to increase visibility in search engines when users search for content or information about companies or products similar to your company’s.

In today’s post on the blog, we will carry out an essential guide on what SEM is so that you can have a rubric with which to improve your results and learn the best way to invest in online advertising.

What is SEM?

Search Engine Marketing, or, as its acronym calls it, SEM, is defined as the set of tools and actions that are carried out to improve companies’ visibility to attract more web traffic and improve the final acquisition of customers through a definite investment.

We must observe that the main objective of SEM is to position the company or brand among the first results.

We must understand that there are different types of SEM strategies. The first would be the Display, the ads that appear throughout the search engine when users search for information or browse. They are made up of banners displayed throughout social networks, websites, etc.

The second type of SEM ad would be search ads. These ads are developed in the search results as if they were a result.

How SEM works

To analyze how SEM works, we must know that it comprises machine learning and a bidding system.

Machine learning works similarly to an AI that analyzes the behaviours of millions of customers looking to identify patterns of search, purchase or interest. In other words, when SEM advertising campaigns begin to work, the algorithm learns what type of content users interact with the most, looking for the best route to convert users.

The bidding system works so that the accounts that want to appear in the search results fight for that space; how? Well, through an automated bid within the application. To define it in some way, it would be like an auction in which the last one to raise the poster gets the first place.

But this bid must be orchestrated by the advertiser since they must write the keywords for which they want to bid and the maximum budget we want to allocate to pay each one for the cost per click.

The process works through a series of operations. The first process consists of making the list of words you want to position in Google Ads; after this action, the ads will begin the auction phase. The following factors will influence the bidding system:

• Maximum bid: This is the ultimate budget we want to spend for each click on the ad.
• Ad quality: This is an indicator within the application that indicates the ad’s relevance among users.
• Ad extensions: This section would provide the user with contact information to redirect traffic, such as a telephone number or a specific URL.
• Ad positioning: The ad will be positioned in the upper part of the search engine, depending on the bid made and the quality of the ad or landing page.

Also Read: Branding And SEO: Google Favours Brands With Recognition

How to carry out an SEM strategy

In this section, we will show you a series of recommendations you must consider for your SEM campaign to succeed; we detail them below.

Segmentation

One of the first premises to make ads that have a good impact is to know your target audience. At this point, you must segment customers based on search interests, the sites they have visited, or what content they consume.

This will help you choose which keywords best suit your promotional strategy since they must be developed around how the users you want to reach are looking for.

Generation and updating of keywords

As in SEO, we must study the keywords that best suit your brand, taking into account how users search for related content. That is, the study of words will help us to position our ads in front of the public that can produce the highest click rate and conversions, that is, the correct audience.

When searching for keywords, we must look for keywords that fit intending to compare the users; that is, we must look for those words that the public uses to make actual purchases since this will help us to improve the probability of conversion.

The keyword strategy must be balanced between those competitive keywords (those for which all companies bid in your sector) and those less competitive (more specific keywords in the industry) only to attract the most significant possible number of clients but also those who are already potentially mature and who has information on the sector, since they are usually the most likely to make the purchase.

Considering the CPC or cost per click, this strategy must be carried out since the most competitive words are usually more expensive. Studying the CPC will help us to know how much we should bid for the keywords to appear in user searches. If this is higher, we may gain opportunities or, otherwise, waste money by bidding for too high a CPC.

Develop the SEO and SEM strategy together

Combining the SEO and SEM strategy will help you capture the customer within the landing page. The SEM will be in charge of attracting the client when they do not know that they are looking for us; if the SEO is later optimized, it will help us keep the user on the web since the content they will see will be quality.

Create a specific landing page for the promotion

Creating a landing page will help users be focused on other content on the web and remember the intention of the SEM ad when browsing it.

Linking the ad to the landing will make users expand the information they were interested in when searching; combining this with an enriching experience will improve the possibility of conversion.

Perform an A/B test of your ads

A/B tests work by creating another landing page or web page where certain information or elements differ from the original. Google will position this content to a limited number of users and analyze whether the changes work better than the original content.

In this way, we will obtain a detailed analysis of the efficiency of both versions, and, during trial and error, we will find out which version will achieve the highest probability of conversion into actual customers.

Keep your campaigns constantly updated

The key to the functionality of the ads lies in the daily monitoring of the campaigns. One of the good practices to improve the drives will be to add negative keywords, ensuring that our ad does not appear in irrelevant searches that make us lose part of the investment.

Optimization of titles and descriptions to attract potential users. This content should attract users, and the relevant keywords should be placed strategically, adjusting to the user’s search intention.

Also Read: SEO Tips For Your eCommerce Content Plan