Every organization with an online presence knows that it is not enough just to show up; you also need to be noticed. Just having a website will not suffice, internet citizens must also know about it as well as have easy access to it. To achieve the lofty objectives of your business, SEM is the tool that will give you the attention you deserve on the internet.
Why SEM and not SEO?
Well, both the two approaches have a part to play, and both will significantly increase your chances of being visible online. You’ll get the best results when they work together.
SEO will mostly focus on making your website visible organically, as in, naturally. It mostly relies on observing all the things search engines are looking for on a website to determine its credibility and reliability; hence, its ranking on search results. SEO is mostly about keywords, quality and relevant content, useful and descriptive Metadata, and other similar candy that search engines can’t resist.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM), on the other hand, is like a step further after SEO. It involves paying for visibility on search engines. It is more forceful – if you may – and has a higher success rate compared to plain SEO. It involves having search engines place an ad on the first page of the SERP (Search Engine Results Page), which users can easily notice. When a user clicks on the ad, the search engine will charge you some money; hence, the term Pay Per Click (PPC) – as in, you pay only when your ad is clicked. The more people click your ad, the more you pay, and the more traffic you get on your site.
However, the good thing is that the amount of money you’ll pay for the ads is nothing compared to the quality of traffic you’ll get and the amount of money you’ll generate from it. Furthermore, once you are getting steady traffic on your website, you are free to discontinue using the PPC SEM method. With that in mind, you can see that it is not an expensive or wasteful approach in any way.
Life On Top of the World
SEM will do wonders for your company’s online visibility. If you want to increase brand awareness for your products, you should go with this method.
As suggested earlier, SEM works with SEO to boost your online visibility. It uses the keywords you would like to be discovered with, which makes search engines to display your ads only to people who use those keywords. That means you only receive traffic that’s genuinely interested in your products. And assuming that you provide quality products and services, the chances are that the traffic you’ll receive will stick and attract even more traffic.
In addition, SEM is an online marketing method that you can track to determine how your marketing campaign is doing. This approach allows you to monitor the keywords you are using and their success rate; therefore, giving you the opportunity to make adjustments where necessary. You can also assess how you are spending on your ad campaigns to figure out how much money you’ll need. It makes it easy to keep an eye on your budget.
Other useful SEM methods are CPC (Cost Per Click), that enables you to determine the amount of money you are spending when a user clicks your ad; and CTR (click through rate), a very informative method that reveals the amount of clicks that led users to your website through your ads or other means.
SEM and SEO are essential for your organization if you are to maintain a significant online presence. Don’t focus on one and neglect the other; the two online marketing methods need to work together to be effective. The secret is in understanding the two, knowing the strengths and weaknesses of each, and determining how to combine their strengths effectively for the best output.
