The objective of SEM (search engine marketing) is to enhance the online prominence of websites on the search engine results page (SERP) through a digital marketing strategy.
Typically, this manifests as paid search advertisements displayed above natural or unpaid outcomes.
How Does Search Engine Marketing Work
Ranking above organic results on the search engine results page (SERP), SEM can effectively attract fresh customers and increase profits.
Observe the search engine results page (SERP) for “meditation apps.” Headspace occupies the first spot in organic ranking and also secures the top Google ad position. You might question the reason behind their bidding on the keyword despite being on top organically.
The explanation is uncomplicated: by doing so, they occupy greater space on the SERP. Additionally, despite the variability of their organic rankings, they have an opportunity to be featured at the page’s summit.
If a user is prepared to make a purchase, it is crucial to capture their attention right away on the SERP’s top. Otherwise, they might opt for the most visible and effortless choice, which could be your competitor’s advertisement.
In order to make your website visible at the top of the SERP, you must emerge as the winner of the ad auction.
How Ad Auctions Work
In order to obtain esteemed paid ad positions at the beginning of the SERP, advertisers compete by offering bids on specific keywords. The victorious bidder earns the most prominent placement. To focus on Google Ads, we will delve into the mechanics of the bidding process.
In order to participate in an advertising auction, you will have to identify two essential elements:
- The keywords you want to bid on
- How much you’re willing to spend per click for each keyword
The appropriate cost will vary depending on your field, as insurance and legal industries typically have a higher average CPC compared to less competitive markets like home and garden.
After verifying that the keywords you have placed bids on match the search queries of users, Google will proceed to include your ads in the auction.
Ad placements will be limited to search results with ample commercial intention, meaning users are in a purchasing mindset. As exemplified by the advertisement for Headspace, individuals are poised to purchase a subscription.
Informational searches, such as “what does copywriting mean,” solely exhibit natural outcomes, whereas multiple factors can impact the competitiveness of your advertisement, regardless of its suitability for the keyword.
How to Win an Ad Auction
In adherence with the Google Ads policies, ad auction assessments are based on five primary factors.
- Maximum bid: The maximum amount you’re willing to pay for a click on your ad
- Quality Score: The formula that Google Ads uses to determine the relevance of your ad, or how useful it will be for the user
- Impact of ad extensions: The additional information you provided in your ad (phone number, links to specific pages, etc.)
- Ad rank: Ad rank is a combination of your bid and the quality of your ad and landing page. Google requires ads to meet a minimum quality threshold in order to be shown in a higher position.
- Ad context: When calculating ad rank, Google takes context into account. This includes the search term used, the user’s location, the time of search, the device used, and more.
Useful tip: It is possible to track and enhance your Quality Score within your Google Ads account.
You have complete control over Google’s automated bidding strategies, also known as the maximum bid. This applies to any ad extensions that have the potential to affect your ad’s performance.
By being assigned a number between 1 and 10 from Google, called the Quality Score, your ad is only victorious in auctions for pertinent queries.
PPC advertising is regulated by the Quality Score, which guarantees that the ads that users view are beneficial and appropriate. Your paid search expenses will increase considerably if your advertisement is linked to a large number of irrelevant or generic searches.
It is probable that you will not achieve the desired outcomes and your return on investment (ROI) could suffer.
SEM Best Practices
To craft a successful ad campaign, you’ll need to structure your campaign correctly, choose the right keywords, write solid ad copy, and analyze competitors’ ads.
1. Set Up Google Ads Account & Campaign Structure
To establish your Ads account, abide by the guidelines provided by Google. However, it is advisable not to hastily commence your initial campaign.
To maximize your paid search budget, ensure strategic structuring of your campaigns. Familiarize yourself with these four components of an ad:
- Campaign: Set of ad groups that share a budget, target location, and other settings
- Ad group: Sets of keywords divided by theme
- Keyword: Terms you are bidding on
- Ad: Copy that users will see when your ad is triggered
Keyword Intent
To kick off a pay-per-click strategy, one must first select the appropriate keywords to place bids on.
The process involves conducting research to identify the keywords to bid on, which refer to the queries for which you want your ad to be displayed. Initially, you should come up with brand-related terms, words that characterize your product, and words that describe your rivals.
If your budget is limited, it might be best to only bid on keywords with purchasing potential. On the other hand, if your finances are more substantial, you could consider bidding on keywords for the beginning stages of the buyer’s journey or even for terms that are only loosely connected to your offerings.
Keyword Volume and Competition
In the event that your target keywords are not being searched for, your advertisements will not yield any outcomes. Conversely, excessively high volume keywords draw in a greater amount of competition and occasionally become less relevant.
Finding high-volume and low-competition keywords that are relevant during keyword research is ideal, although it can be challenging. It requires striking a balance between competition (budget) and demand (volume).
Keyword Cost
The placement of your ad is based on the keyword’s bidding and your ad’s quality score as assessed by Google. The highest bids and superior quality ads secure the top spot.
Taking into account the same idea, keywords with high competition result in higher costs. If you bid too low, your ad won’t be displayed, hence it’s important to adjust your bid based on the amount of competition for the keyword to maintain competitiveness.
2. Optimize Your Headline
Ensure clarity and specificity regarding your business and its products or offerings in your ad’s headline as it is the most noticeable element.
When creating your ad, you have the option to select three headings, each with a limit of 30 characters. A well-written headline should:
- Include simple, direct language
- Use keywords naturally
- Address user intent
- Appeal to emotion or use humor (if it fits your branding)
Keeping that in consideration, presented here are some instances of headings that would be suitable for a company marketing sports shoes:
- Sneakers for Sale
- Find Your Perfect Kicks
- Shop Our Sneakers
3. Choose a Display URL
The web address that is visible on your ad is referred to as the display URL, but the landing page URL may offer more details. For instance, if your abbreviated display URL is sneakers.com.
The landing page URL, also known as the final URL, can be a more precise address such as sneakers.com/running-shoes when a user interacts with the ad. It’s crucial that the final URL correlates with the user’s search query, making it the most relevant page on your website. Meanwhile, the display URL is simply a glimpse of what’s to come.
This is how to select a display URL that will be the most efficient:
- Help users anticipate what kind of page they will land on
- Clearly show your brand name or what you sell
- Keep it short and simple
4. Write Click-worthy Descriptions
Craft two intriguing phrases that will provoke users to click on your website. These could highlight the products or services you offer, the reasons why your website deserves their attention, or any other relevant details about your brand.
Each description line can be up to 90 characters. Here are a few tips for writing solid ad descriptions:
- Strategically place keywords so users can tell your ad matches their needs
- Keep your messaging concise and to the point so users don’t lose interest
- Always include a call to action to entice clicks (“shop now,” “place your order,” “book now,” etc.)
Below are some samples of descriptions that you can use for our fictitious sneaker website:
- Shop our Semi-Annual Sale to get discounts on our most popular styles.
- More than 100 styles to choose from, plus free shipping and returns on every order.
- Choose our Custom Sneakers to personalize the color and style of your kicks.
5. Include Ad Extensions
Incorporate ad extensions to provide supplementary details that could potentially persuade users to click. Advertisements generally have better performance when ad extensions are inserted. Nonetheless, their appearance can be impacted by several factors, and they may not always appear.
- Ad rank: Site extensions appear when a minimum ad rank is met. Increase your bid and ad quality (or both) if your ad extensions aren’t showing.
- Position of your ad: There’s only so much room on the SERP for ads, so ads ranked higher take priority. Ads in lower positions usually won’t have as many extensions visible.
- Other extensions you’ve enabled: When you enter an auction, Google will identify the best possible combination of eligible ad extensions and formats. According to Google, “You will not be able to get a combination of extensions which gives more expected click-through-rate (CTR) than the expected CTR of a higher ad position.”
Best SEM tools
1. HubSpot’s Ad Tracking Software
You’re not spending money on advertising just for the sake of it; you’re investing in advertising with the goal of acquiring leads and boosting revenue for your business.
With the HubSpot Ads tool, you can delve deeper into the impact of your advertisements on contacts at various stages of the buyer’s journey, instead of just focusing on traffic and click data.
By doing this, you will gain a comprehension of the effective ads, provide a justification for SEM as a channel, and blend your advertisement with the other marketing endeavors.
2. SEMrush
With SEMRush, you can perform thorough research on keywords, monitor your keyword rankings, conduct site audits, analyze traffic data, and much more. This tool is particularly useful for identifying chances to organically rank for more specific keywords, although it can also be utilized in different search engine marketing endeavors.
One possible rephrased version could be: By utilizing SEMRush, you have the ability to identify the focus of your competitors’ advertising campaigns and evaluate their geographical reach, allowing you to determine how much investment you should allocate towards particular keywords.
In addition, SEMRush allows you to identify your primary competitors in paid search, determine the keywords they’re targeting through bidding, and analyze the structure of their advertisements.
When developing your own paid strategy and struggling to rank higher than other companies on search engine results pages, this information is crucial.
3. Google Trends
By utilizing Google Trends, you are able to monitor the amount of searches for a certain keyword within a designated area, dialect, or duration. This can assist in determining which search queries are currently popular and which ones are not.
This tool is extremely beneficial for your SEM endeavors because you wouldn’t want to invest funds into a keyword that’s losing its popularity.
Especially for those employed in the ecommerce sector, being able to determine the level of interest in your product or service within a particular location is a crucial tool to customize your paid marketing efforts in a cost-efficient way.
4. Keywordtool.io
Keywordtool.Io’s ability to access Google, Bing, YouTube, Amazon, Instagram, Twitter, and the App Store is a useful feature that allows you to hone your keyword research across different platforms, resulting in more precise targeting of your efforts.
Moreover, by taking your primary keyword, this tool gives you various words and phrases to expand your selection of prospective keywords that you could consider adding to a paid advertisement.
Keywordtool.io’s free version utilizes Google Autocomplete to supply appropriate keywords. It enables you to produce up to 750 long-tail keywords and keyword recommendations for each search query.
Additionally, the tool can be utilized to examine search trends on Google for assurance that your target keywords are experiencing growth in popularity and will remain effective for a considerable duration.
5. Google Ads Keyword Planner
Using Google Ads Keyword Planner to research relevant keywords and monitor changes in search patterns for specific keywords is a sensible approach, given that Google is probably the ideal advertising platform for your business.
Using the Keyword Planner can assist in narrowing your options of prospective keywords in order to select the most impactful ones for your enterprise.
Moreover, Keyword Planner will offer recommended bid approximations for every keyword, enabling you to identify which keywords align with your advertising financial plan.
The greatest advantage is that you can carry out your ad campaign within the same tool after locating the perfect keywords.
6. SpyFu
Do you ever desire to witness the keywords that your rivals are purchasing on Google or review their advertising experiments?
By using SpyFu, you can effortlessly look up a domain and discover all the Adwords keywords that the business has purchased, their organic keywords, and any variations of ads that they have used in the past 12 years.
Additionally, it is possible for you to keep track of your individual paid and SEO placements on Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
7. WordStream
WordStream has the ability to aid you in research, measurement, and optimization of your ads to enhance their performance as an advertising management solution.
WordStream provides you with advanced reporting features for analyzing your data and tools to create exceptional advertisements. Furthermore, it also offers alerts and workflow tools to assist you in making campaign decisions.
A well-planned SEM campaign, combined with the appropriate tools, can effectively generate leads. Therefore, you should begin your PPC campaign now without hesitation.
