What is SEM in Digital Marketing? – 25 Facts
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is one of the most effective means for you to grow your small business. With millions of businesses all offering the same products as you, you need to ensure that your services or products are visible online.
SEM is the practice of marketing your business by paying for advertising space. It ensures that your business appears in the search engine results pages. Here are the facts you should know about the SEM practice.
1. Advertisers have to bid for keywords so that their ads can appear alongside the organic search results in search engines.
2. The keywords in some sectors cost way more than others. For instance, keywords in the insurance sector cost about $135 per click. However, some keywords such as those in the dating sector cost as little as $6 per click.
3. For you to have a successful SEM campaign, you must use the right keywords. It entails conducting detailed research of the relevant keywords.
4. Google’s rankings continue to grow. Each year, it takes up a bigger chunk of total searches, which currently stand at about 2 trillion a year.
5. As of now, there are more searches taking place on mobile devices than through any other device. Thus, it is important to ensure that your site is optimized for mobile devices. Otherwise, it could lead to high bounce rates.
6. Google still holds the largest market share in the United States. It takes up to about 90% of the market.
7. Organic search visits took a 7% dip in 2016. That may be due to a change in the Google algorithm. It proves how crucial it is to have a SEM campaign. Depending simply on SEO will not cut it.
8. Click-through rates for ads have gone up after Google got rid of ads on the right-hand side of SERPS.
9. It is projected that total spending on digital marketing, including SEM, will be higher than spending on TV ads. It thus proves the value of SEM compared to running a TV ad.
10. Targeting your ads locally is important. 72% of all searches for a local store within 5 miles lead to a store visit.
11. Voice search has doubled in the recent past. This can be partly attributed to the reduction in the error rate of voice search. Thus, create ads targeted at human searches not machines.
12. Speed is an important ranking factor. Even with a SEM campaign, your ad ranks lower for just a second’s delay in loading time.
13. The negative keywords feature is crucial if you want to keep the costs of your SEM campaign low. You could end up paying for an advertisement that does not lead to any conversions.
14. One of the most important factors for successful SEM is the Quality Score. Conduct in-depth research about what it entails.
15. About 80% of all clicks to a site are because of white hat SEO. Of all those clicks, 90% of them are on the first page of results. Ensure that your SEM campaign is targeted at the first page.
16. Do not just focus on high-value keywords. Low-cost keywords have the potential to lead to more clicks if used in large quantities. It is an important factor to consider if you have a low budget.
17. Ensure that your sitemap adheres to Sitemap Protocol that popular search engines like Google support. Otherwise, your SEM campaign may not be fruitful since your site will not be indexed.
18. Avoid links from sites that are likely to be flagged for black hat techniques. It could hurt your SEM efforts thus leading to a lot of wasted resources.
19. Avoid using images or flash for your landing page. Search engines cannot crawl images. Thus, your site will likely be ignored. It will thus cause your ad to be ranked quite low. At times, it could be dropped.
20. In terms of cost per lead, SEM is the most efficient online marketing tool. It only costs about 29 cents per lead compared to email marketing, which is about 50 cents per lead.
21. People who are in need of purchasing a product are more likely to type in a product’s name than to browse a shopping channel.
22. Site marketers view search engine positioning as the most crucial factor for driving traffic to their site followed closely by email as of 2001.
23. A phenomenon that is known as ‘search rage’ set in for most Americans 12 minutes after they are unable to find what they want. You should thus research keywords quite intensely.
24. The relevance of Meta tags has gone down in the recent past. However, they are still a popular method of SEO. SEO and SEM work in tandem for the best conversion rates.
25. Search engines are the top drivers of all traffic to sites. Thus, it is important to have a good SEM strategy. It is a sure way to boost relevant site visits. Besides, it is among the few digital marketing tools that allow you to target ads by locality.