Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Search engine marketing or SEM is your pay per click or PPC advertising campaign on the Internet.

Google Adwords are the most common example.

The same rules apply to SEM as SEO...

... quality and relevance are key.

It's very easy to waste lots of money on a Google Adwords campaign if you choose poor keywords and simply send people to your home page.

Also if your ads are not of sufficient quality and relevant, Google will list your competitors ad instead.

You need to target keywords which are highly relevant to your business...

... and the landing page you choose must be or high quality and once again highly relevant.

Get this wrong and surfers won't click your ads. Or when they do click them they'll hit the back button because they didn't find what they were looking for.

And you waste your money.

Search Engine Marketing starts with Keyword Research

Invest in keyword research. Spend time with your SEO expert here and also do some thinking for yourself.

This is the most important stage of your PPC campaign.

It's really important that you target the right keywords for your business.

If you work hard to make lots of strings like 'commercial building services adelaide' as opposed to just 'builder' your ads will be much more cost effective.

Also Google is more likely to display them in the top spots.

Once you have your keywords think hard about the wording of your ads.

Target your ad to the market you think will buy your product or service.

People are more likely to click an ad that's just a bit different or makes them smile where appropriate. Special offers will tempt some buyers.

It takes a bit of practice to get your ad copy right... you don't have many words to get your message across.

SEM v SEO for Your Internet Marketing?

It's worth knowing that 4 out of 5 visitors to Google leave from a regular search engine listing rather than clicking an ad.

Surfers in general don't like to click sponsored links.

Think hard about your investment in SEO and web content which will bring you long term free targeted traffic... as opposed to endlessly paying for advertising for the life of your business.

Our clients commonly find that if they invest in optimising their website for the search engines and add great content to pre-sell visitors and pick up highly targeted long tail traffic...

.... they can cut back significantly on their SEM budget. Happy Days!

10 great PPC Tips

Contact us to chat about Search Engine Marketing for Your Business

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