Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a valuable Internet marketing tool that will help you reach your target audience who are actually looking for the products or services you are offering. Before we dive into the benefits of SEM, let us briefly learn what SEM is.
What is Search Engine Marketing
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is an online marketing strategy that aims to increase your website’s visibility in the search engine results pages (SERPs) by purchasing ads on search engines like Google. Your ad will appear in the sponsored section of the results page.
As an advertiser, you have to pay Google every time someone clicks your ad. Such advertising used in SEM are often referred to as paid search advertising, paid search ads, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and sponsored ads.
You may have also heard about SEO or Search Engine Optimization. SEO used to fall under SEM, but since both have become intricate, they are now being referred to differently. SEO is when you have to work your way to have a good organic ranking in the SERP through relevant content and other SEO strategies. SEO actually works hand in hand with SEM.
Benefits of SEM
Now let us talk about the advantages of SEM. You just don’t pay for your ads, without knowing what it can give you in return. So what do you get when you utilize SEM? Here are some of the known benefits of SEM:
- Generates instant and quick results. By appearing on the search results page as an ad ahead of organic results, it can reach your target audience almost instantly thus yielding quicker results.
- Promotes visibility and brand awareness, helping increase website traffic in the future. Your business or brand name appears on your paid ad. With your ad placed on top of the search results, you are continually promoting visibility and brand awareness. Brand awareness can also help increase your website traffic in the future.
- Allows you to carry out language-based and location ads. SEM enables you to make ads using different languages. It also allows you to target your audience based on their location, such as city, country, or region.
- Provides competitive advantage. Compared to competitors who are not employing SEM, you have a clear advantage of being seen and selected by the users.
- Targets the right audience with the use of keywords. SEM makes use of keywords to appear in the ads section. This will help ensure that your ad reaches the right target audience, since your ad will appear only to users who are surely interested in your offering.
- Lets you pay only when a user clicks your ad. This is one of the good things about SEM – it is pay-per-click. You only pay when someone actually clicks your ad. Plus, it gives you free exposure to other users who do not click on it.
- Easy to set up, implement, and manage. SEM is actually simple to configure and implement. It is also flexible. You can make changes anytime as needed so you can revise your keywords and other settings depending on your needs or the behaviour of your target users.
- Measurable. Ad performance may be evaluated based on data provided by search engine platforms. The data will help you see how you are benefiting from this marketing strategy. It can also help you optimize your keyword strategy to improve future performance.
- Generates greater Return on Investment (ROI) compared to other advertising media. Compared to TV ads, billboards, and other advertising media, SEM generates greater ROI since it directly targets the right audience.
With knowledge of the benefits of SEM, you can have a better understanding when SEM can be best utilized for your brand. You can better use it to go hand in hand with SEO and other online marketing strategies.
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