SEM is a powerful tool, allowing small businesses to increase their online visibility, reach more potential customers, and ultimately drive more sales. It can be an effective way for them to reach and engage with their target market, as well as increase their chances of conversion and revenue generation. However, small businesses often shy away from integrating search engine marketing into their overall marketing strategies, as it has the reputation of being an extremely costly affair. Today we will talk about the benefits of SEM and explore 6 steps to get your small business started easily. Trust me, you’ll want to after reading this post!

1. What is Sarch Engine Marketing (SEM)?

Search engine marketing (SEM) is the practice of using paid advertising on search engine results pages (SERPs) to reach potential customers and promote a business. It is a form of online marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages through paid advertising.

2. Why is search engine marketing important for small businesses?

Search engine marketing is important for small businesses because it allows them to reach a large audience and target potential customers more effectively. By using techniques such as search engine optimisation (SEO) and pay-per-click advertising (PPC), small businesses can increase their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs), making it easier for potential customers to find their website. This can lead to more website traffic, potentially more leads and more sales. Additionally, SEM allows small businesses to compete with larger companies by leveling the playing field in terms of visibility and reach. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Now, the important thing to remember, is that if you are a small business, you might be struggling to cram every business action into a short 24-hour day. Why would you want to add this marketing tactic to your long to-do list? Well, search engine marketing really doesn’t take up too much time when you take the right first steps to establish your strategy. The first steps will always take a little bit longer and eventually ensure that you gain a whole bunch of hours back once you get the hang of it. Let’s explore the benefits of search engine marketing first, so you can get an idea of why I’m recommending you add this to your marketing mix.

3. What are the benefits of Search Engine Marketing for small businesses?

Here are a few well-known benefits, which can encourage small business to use SEM as part of their marketing mix.

1. Cost-effectiveness: SEM allows small businesses to reach a large audience at a relatively low cost. With the right strategies, small businesses can get a good return on investment (ROI) from their SEM efforts, even with a limited budget.

2. Targeted advertising: SEM allows small businesses to target specific demographics and geographic locations, which can be especially useful for local businesses. This can help them to reach potential customers, who are most likely to be interested in their products or services.

3. Measurable results: SEM provides small businesses with measurable results, such as website traffic, lead generation, and conversion rates. This allows them to track the success of their marketing efforts and make data-driven decisions.

4. Increased brand awareness: SEM can help small businesses increase their potential customers’ brand awareness and reach new customers, which can lead to long-term growth and success.

Of course, Search Engine Marketing is not a magical tool that will automatically help you convert the people you want to have as customers. However it serves as an amazing first step to get attention from them. Even if they don’t click on your ad the first time, there is no doubt that if your ads appear on top of their first search engine results page, they will eventually remember your business’s name and understand that your products or services are the ones they want and need to deal with their pain points.

4. What should a business start with to implement SEM in their marketing mix?

To implement search engine marketing (SEM) in their marketing mix, small businesses should start with the following steps:

a) Conduct keyword research

Keyword research involves identifying the keywords and phrases that potential customers are using to search for products or services related to your business. This will help you understand the intent behind your potential customer’s search online and help you tailor your paid campaigns to target those exact keywords. A few of my favorite tools to look for keywords are Google Trends, Answer the Public (which was fairly recently acquired by Neil Patel’s digital agency and now offers a bit less freedom in the number of searches you can perform per day) and Google Keyword Planner (which you get access to with a Google Ads account). There are countless other tools out there, however these three should give you enough insight to be able to build a solid keyword list.

If you do need help to decipher the complexities of keywords, reach out to me over here.

B) Optimise your website

Make sure your website is optimised for search engines by including keywords in the content, meta tags, and URLs. This will help your website to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs) and make it easier for potential customers to find it. I will write a blog post to explain the basic steps you can take to review your website and bring it up to speed. In the meantime, I do offer personal website reviews and website development advice, so send me a message if you need this service.

C) Create high-quality content

Creating high-quality content is always a bit of a headache. I have read SO MANY blog posts, watched SO MANY videos and generally heard this phrase on social media SO MANY times, that I am getting really tired of hearing about this weird concept. High-quality content, as I understand it, is content that is relevant, informative, and engaging for your target audience. This means that whatever you write (or get someone else to write for you * coughs * ChatGPT), will need to be read again the next day and from the perspective of a client. What is interesting to us, business owners, is not necessarily interesting to our customers or potential customers. You might be wondering why high-quality content is relevant for your ad campaign. Isn’t this a completely different topic? Well yes and no actually. The easiest way to explain this, is for you to imagine yourself having created the most beautiful and well-written ad campaign ever… And then not having a good webpage to link your ad to. Your potential customer could be amazed by your ad and soon after completely distraught by the poor quality of the information on your website. Equally important is the fact that Google will also evaluate the chances of your ads to show up on top of the search engine results page by making sure that your website is good for users online. Do you see now why high-quality content (ugh, this again) is needed?

D) Establish your PPC campaigns

This is the main step where a lot of people get confused. PPC campaigns are not the only part contributing to successful search engine marketing. They are at the epicenter indeed, and require equal attention as all the other steps mentioned above and below. To establish your PPC campaigns, start by creating an account on Google Ads and Bing Ads, create your ad copy with the help of your previously crafted keyword list and keep in mind that no one wants to click on an ad which sounds “spammy” or too “sales-y”. Research the tone of voice of your competitors or other businesses offering related services in your industry, make a note of it and then adapt your ad copy to your own brand’s tone of voice. Craft your ads as if you were speaking to humans and had to elevator pitch your products or services in written form. After that, all that is left to do is choose the parameters of the audience you want to reach, the budget you would like to spend and the duration of your ad campaign. Once that is done, always review everything before you publish it and launch the campaign. Google generally can take up to 2 days to validate your ads and actually push them live. My advice here is to publish your ads in the morning, one or two days before the official launch date and pause them, until you are ready to have them live. That way, Google will verify your ads in the background and you have full control over your launch timing. Ta-daa, now we wait for your ads to work their magic.

E) Measure and optimise

Use tools such as Google Analytics or Google Ads insights to measure the performance of your SEM campaigns. Look at metrics such as website traffic, conversion rates, and return on investment (ROI) to understand which campaigns are performing well and which need to be optimised. This is a crucial step for the success of your campaigns. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “we learn and we grow”. Well, that applies to search engine marketing as well. If you choose to only focus on one metric, let’s say the budget you invested, you won’t be able to learn much from your mistakes. And if you decide to look at ALL the metrics at once, you might get confused and not interpret your results correctly. My advice would be to focus (at first) on only a handful of metrics, both website-traffic-related and ads-related metrics. Have your results increased? Have people clicked through to your ad and landed on your webpage? Has your ad reached the people you wanted? Have you had any conversions? I’ll create a more in-depth post about which metrics are important to track when making SEM part of your marketing mix. The important message here is that you’ll need to put a bit of time aside to see which metrics don’t seem to have obtained great results and to optimise your future campaigns based on what you uncovered in your analysis.

F) Continuously monitor and update

SEM is not a set-and-forget strategy. It requires continuous monitoring and updating, both on your website and in the creation process of your campaigns. For you and me, this means keeping up-to-date with the latest developments in the digital world. Keep track of changes in search engine algorithms, read a few blog posts on Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal or Moz and adjust your strategies accordingly. Also, monitor competitors, customer behavior, and market trends to always stay ahead of the game.

5. Conclusion

It is worth noting that SEM is not the only marketing strategy that businesses should use. It should be part of a comprehensive marketing mix. However, it can be a cost-effective way to increase brand awareness, generate leads and ultimately sales, whilst getting to know your audience more.

If you need help setting up your campaigns or consider integrating search engine marketing into your overall marketing strategy, let me know over here! I’d be honored to work with you. Let’s start your digital journey together.