This is a search marketing guide that provides an in-depth insight into the diverse elements involved in this marketing method and its significant impact on your SERP rankings.
Search marketing is a critical part of digital marketing services that have been growing in importance over the last decade. You may have heard of search engine optimization (SEO) or pay per click (PPC). Still, if you’re not already working in the field, you may be wondering how this type of marketing works and how it relates to content marketing and social media.
When it comes to search marketing, you’re probably most familiar with SEO, the process of optimizing content for search engines, so they’ll present it on their first page of the searcher’s results. You have probably heard of PPC, which is paid advertising method such as Google Adwords.
You need to understand the terms for this kind of marketing before constructing a strategic search optimization approach. Let’s start at the top, therefore.
Search Marketing Explained
Search marketing refers to the terms and methods used to market a business or person on search engines such as Google and Bing. As the name suggests, search marketing is only available to those who have a website indexed.
Whether you are a homeowner looking to buy a new washing machine, a teenager looking to buy concert tickets online, or a consumer looking for a local business, you’ve probably used search marketing to locate a specific product or service. Technically, this type of marketing is a subset of search engine optimization.
SEM is a paid strategy, and SEO is an organic strategy, which is the biggest distinction between SEM and SEO. But let’s take a closer look below.
SEO Vs. SEM
Search engine optimization and search engine marketing are often considered the same thing, but they’re not. While they do both revolve around the same thing—organizing content in a way that makes it easier for web crawlers to find—they’re actually two very different things. Today, we will explain the difference between SEO and SEM and give you an idea of what each does.
Inside search marketing, there are two main categories:
SEM – This type of marketing refers to the way marketers use paying tactics in the quest to appear on SERPs and other display networks.
SEO – Search engine optimization uses ORGANIC techniques in the quest to appear on SERPs.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the visibility of a website or a web page in unpaid results—often referred to as “natural,” “organic,” or “earned” results. Search engine marketing (SEM) is a form of Internet marketing that involves promoting websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) primarily through paid advertising.
Search Engine Marketing
Search engine marketing (SEM) is a marketing method that involves promoting websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERP) primarily through paid advertising.
SEM can increase your site traffic and improve your site usability. Web sites can be more effectively targeted to potential customers through the use of relevant content and keywords.
Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine’s unpaid results—often referred to as “natural,” “organic,” or “earned” results. SEO may target different results, including image, local, video, academic, news, and industry-specific vertical search results.
The goal of SEO is to increase a site’s relevance to specific keyword phrases. This process involves adding content to the site to create more pages on which to place relevant keywords. Also, SEO emphasizes the need for high-quality content. The relevance and ranking of web pages in a search engine are determined by a series of complex strategies that can take years to develop.
When it comes to SEO, you have two main types, which include:
Local SEO – It refers to the online optimization of a business website for a local geographic area. A successful local SEO campaign includes a mix of off-site, on-site, and local on-page strategies. Local SEO is a part of a larger marketing method called local marketing.
National SEO – Also known as “traditional” SEO or on-page SEO at a high level, aims to improve your website’s SERP visibility on a national or multi-state scale. National SEO services will help your website rank if your business serves consumers in multiple areas such as eCommerce stores.
What Is Local Search Marketing?
Local search marketing is a fast-growing industry in the 21st century. It is a technique that helps smaller or local businesses rank higher on search results, such as Google. Several factors play a role in the ranking of local businesses. Your business name and address are the most important elements used to determine your relevance in local ranking results, including Google Maps. However, other factors include social media visibility, domain name authority, and quality of content on your website.
Using Social Media To Boost Search Marketing
Social media has been called one of the best ways to conduct search marketing since it allows companies to engage with people searching for them directly. This direct engagement is key to generating brand awareness and interest in your company in your target audience.
In today’s tech-driven world, your business must be online, using the most efficient and effective tools to reach your customers. And since search engines are where most people start their digital search for anything, search marketing tools, such as social media marketing, can really help you get your business noticed.
How Your Content Helps With Search Marketing
Many factors affect how search engines treat your site. (For example, you can’t rank highly for a term you hardly use on your site.) The one factor you have the most control over is the text content you present to search engines, which is why it’s so important to “create quality content” — which means making sure that you’re not just writing for humans but also optimizing it for search engines. Content marketing can help boost your marketing efforts exponentially.
How Do Search Engines Work?
Search engines are a big, multi-billion dollar industry that is more important than ever. While the first one was invented in 1990, it wasn’t until 1998, when Google was launched, that the industry took off. Since then, we have seen things like pay-per-click advertising, paid inclusion, and a whole lot more.
Online search is what makes the web go around. Without them, we’d be lost in a world of interlinked texts, videos, and more. Google and others do their best to give us what we want, but there’s a lot of stuff they can’t quite understand.
There are many aspects to how these engines work, including the algorithms that they use. But a search engine has two main components:
Search Engine Crawler – The crawler is responsible for visiting pages and indexing the pages it deems important.
Search Index – The crawler uses the index to provide results to its users. The search index stores the information from the crawled pages and makes that data available to search results.
You can improve your website’s optimization by understanding how Google, Bing, and Yahoo find, arrange, and select results.
SEO or SEM: Which Method Is Better?
You may be wondering which strategy is right for your marketing campaigns now that we’ve compared SEM vs. SEO. Using what you know and consider the following to determine which is right for your brand.
Obviously, the more search marketing strategies that you can implement in your marketing efforts, the better. But a lot depends on whether you have a brand new business or an established one and what your competitors are doing.
SEO is a long-term strategy that can take months or even years, depending on how competitive your keywords are. Paid search can get you quick results but does require a pretty large budget. If possible, I suggest that you begin your SEO campaign while you pay to have your website on Google Adwords to generate traffic and close some deals. But it would be best if you had a sound strategic plan so that you don’t overspend your budget.
It’s also important to understand a bit more about search marketing before you get started.
Search Marketing Strategies
A well-planned online marketing strategy can go a long way in bringing traffic to your site and get you maximum visibility on all leading information retrieval systems such as Yahoo, Google, MSN, Ask Jeeves, and Bing. A well-planned strategy also aims at making your website more search-friendly for users. This allows them to find and visit your website.
You should consider many things when creating a search marketing strategy, including who your ideal customer is, the intent behind their search terms, what kind of content you want to create for them, and how much you’re willing to spend to reach a potential customer. You should also consider the platforms you’ll use to promote your strategy, as well as how to measure the results of your strategy. If you’re a beginner at this type of marketing, you may choose to hire an expert to do some of the work for you – as long as you can find a reputable agency.
A well-thought-out marketing strategy involves getting better acquainted with the basic concepts of Internet marketing. You will have to create effective webpages by choosing the right key phrases and creating clusters of the keywords you want to rank for your website. It would help if you also understood the importance of keyword phrases and their proper usage, article marketing, directory submissions, blogs, and web directories.
PPC Marketing Strategy
SEM is one of the most competitive types of online marketing. SEM allows businesses to advertise their services and products in front of potential customers. A successful SEM marketing strategy starts with the creation of a keyword list. A keyword list aims to create a list of the most relevant keywords that attract the desired audience to your website and help you understand the types of search terms that consumers are using to find your business. To create a keyword list, you can begin by reviewing your existing website analytics. For example, if you sell cleaning products, you might already have a list of the most frequent keyword phrases that lead someone to your site.
Bing and Google ads are among the most popular pay-per-click platforms for internet users. Their algorithms are very complicated, and it takes a professional to understand them well. Many large companies and websites employ SEO company services due to the complexity of this type of marketing. A good search engine marketing company will generate leads for your product or service based on your demographics, keywords, and ads.
Among the two, Google is the more commonly used search engine in the US. Google’s AdWords is the most widely used pay-per-click program in the world and can get you the best results. But Bing is also very effective and can get you better results when it comes to ROI.
SEO Marketing Strategy
An SEO strategy involves several tactics, though some are more successful than others. SEO aims to improve the ranking of a website in the SERPs. This is usually achieved by implementing a series of best practices that boost the website’s relevancy to the query. Search engines have become very sophisticated and are getting better and better at determining what a user is looking for.
An effective SEO strategy involves various techniques that have been proven to drive results. But choosing the right keywords, writing engaging content, and using the most effective links are just the beginning. SEO techniques also require a lot of on-going effort, more than many people realize. For instance, did you know that Google makes more than 500 changes to its algorithm each year? These changes can dramatically impact your rankings, potentially making you much harder to find.
Need some search marketing help?
Search marketing provides a smart approach to marketing and advertising your business online for your company. You can collect valuable organic and paid traffic that turns into leads, purchases, and revenue with a competitive marketing strategy.
We have a dedicated team of experts in search marketing and a range of online marketing services, providing all your business requirements to excel in SEO and Paid advertising.
Our digital marketing agency can help if you need help creating, launching, and managing your search marketing strategy. Today, contact us.
