Around 60% of people searching for something online are only looking at the first page of the search results.
This is why a marketing strategy is critically important if you want to improve your online performance. SEM, search engine marketing, is one of the best ways to increase your online presence.
SEM allows consumers to find you on the first page of Google. It’s also faster than using content marketing, which can take a while to build up organic traffic.
SEM actually on average helps businesses make $2 for every $1 they spent on AdWords.
If you’re unsure of what SEM can do for your business compared to SEO or other marketing strategies, then consider these SEM benefits and how they benefit your business.
What is SEM?
While it’s important to understand the benefits of SEM, it’s just as important to understand what SEM is. You need to know the basics before you know the benefits.
SEM is search engine marketing, which is a form of paid advertising. You are paying search engines in order to be seen by your target market.
For example, if you were to create a search engine marketing ad, you would want that ad to be seen as soon as someone searches for something related to your business.
SEM allows for your business to be seen immediately. When you create SEM ads, you will need to learn about the keywords your target market is using and how to write a stellar ad copy. This essential if you want your ad to appeal to your target market.
1. You Learn More About Your Target Market
If you want to create an SEM campaign, you need to know everything about your target market.
You specifically need to know what keywords they are using. Keywords are a vital part of your SEM campaign. You need keywords that are used by your target market and you need to put them into your ad.
When you do this, your ad will appear on the top of the search results. It makes your ad more relevant to your target market.
This is why you need to research everything about your target market. In a way, SEM forces you to learn more about your ideal customer. You will have to learn how to help them.
First, you have to see what kind of problems they have. You also need to know their demographics, which include where they live, their age, and if the majority of your consumers are male or female.
The more you know about your target market, the better results you’ll get in your business.
This will also help you write ad copy. You should be writing ad copy that appeals to your target market. This is the benefit of learning everything about your ideal customer.
Your ad copy should have an emotional appeal that hits home to your target market. That way, when they read your ad copy when they search for something, they instantly feel a connection to it. They feel like you can help them solve their problem.
2. Your Brand Benefits
Another benefit of running SEM campaigns is that your brand becomes more recognized.
Your brand tells a story to consumers. The story should be about the ideal customer and how your business helps them overcome a problem.
When you run SEM ad campaigns, you want to make sure that your story is easily understood, and it helps your boost your brand. You want to make sure your audience sees the value of your brand whenever they see your logo or see your business name.
SEM helps improve the value of your brand because you are increasing your online presence. You make yourself more visible with online searches.
3. More Traffic to Your Website
In addition, when you have more of an online presence, you also have more traffic to your website.
With more traffic to your website, you not only help increase your brand visibility, but you also help generate more leads. This can lead to more sales and more profit for your business.
However, it’s important to remember that just because you have an SEM ad, it doesn’t mean that you’ll automatically increase traffic to your website. You need to make sure you have a strategy in place.
You need to make sure you have researched the right keywords your target market is using and that you have an appealing ad copy. That way, when someone sees your ad, they immediately want to click on it.
4. More Leads
With more website traffic, you’ll also generate more leads for your business. This particular benefit can help you generate more website sales.
When you do generate leads from your SEM campaigns, you want to make sure that you have a place for your leads to go. In other words, after they become a lead, you want to ensure that they are part of your email campaign.
The goal is to warm up your leads, so they are eventually ready to buy. You can also schedule a call with your leads in order to convert a sale.
The important thing to remember is that SEM is great for leads, but it’s equally important that you know what to do with your leads.
5. There’s Consistency
Another benefit of SEM is that there’s some consistency. If you continue to run SEM ads, you’ll discover that there’s a consistent traffic source to your website.
You don’t have to worry about a drop-off in traffic if you continue to run ads. In fact, if you continue to learn more about your target market and improve your ads, you’ll find that there’s more traffic with better ads.
This consistency helps stabilize your business because you’ll always be producing leads. The goal now is to figure out how to improve your conversion rate. You want to eventually make more sales from your business.
6. You Don’t Have to Spend an Exuberant Amount
If you don’t want to spend a lot on SEM, you don’t have to. That’s the beauty of it.
You can spend however much your budget allows. You don’t have to spend a minimum of $500 to see results.
Another benefit of SEM is that you are only spending when someone clicks on your ad and takes action. Your ad is shown for free, so you are only paying when someone takes action.
If your ad is effective and produces a lot of traffic, you may find that you are paying the maximum amount your budget allows. This might be a sign that you need to increase your monthly allowance on a particular ad if it’s showing massive signs of success.
7. It’s Faster Than Organic Traffic and SEO
Writing blog content is great if you want to produce traffic over the course of a year. If you want to build traffic slowly, then SEO organic traffic is the way to go.
However, if you want the benefit of instant traffic, SEM is the best way to go. SEM produces instant results because when you create your ad, it’s ready to be seen by your target market instantly.
You generate leads instantly. You have a faster rate of sales.
While having an SEM campaign doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do SEO organic traffic, it simply means that SEM is faster. You should aim to have both, but keep in mind that SEM is a faster way of producing results while you continue to build out your organic traffic over time.
8. You Stay Ahead of Your Competitors
If you do your research, find the perfect keywords, and write the perfect description for your ad, you will stay ahead of your competitors.
Your target market will click on your ad more often because it’s more appealing. In addition, your competitors only using organic traffic to reach their target market, you can stay ahead with SEM because it is faster.
There are a lot of advantageous ways to stay ahead of your competitors with SEM, and this is the benefit of search engine marketing.
9. It Helps with Mobile
If your target market is searching for a business related to yours and you are running SEM ads, it’s likely they will find you on mobile.
With more people on their mobile devices, it’s important that you are more visible on mobile markets. It’s important that you stay relevant to your audience’s behavior.
By being visible on the top of search engines, you make your business more visible to everyone who is on mobile. This helps generate more traffic and increase more leads.
It also enhances the user experience.
However, it’s just as important that your website is mobile-friendly. This gives you an advantage over your competitors who don’t have a mobile-friendly site.
While you may have ads that are visible with mobile searching, it doesn’t mean you don’t need a mobile-friendly website. You do need one because it also enhances the user experience.
10. You Help with Your Local Presence
Almost 50% of people searching for something are looking for something locally. This is another benefit of SEM and how it can help increase your local presence.
For example, if you had a baking business and were running SEM ads around your bakery, you would appear on the top of a Google search result. If you live in a city with multiple bakeries, you will want SEM to help you stand out amongst your competitors.
You also would want to be seen by your target market.
SEM is not just for online business, it’s also for brick and mortar shops who want to increase foot traffic. SEM can help local businesses connect with local residents.
It can give your brand more recognition.
In addition, you should also know that SEM pairs perfectly with SEO when it comes to local search. For example, if a local resident were to search for a local bakery and they saw your ad, they might pass over it.
They might instead look at the organic traffic sites. When you do SEO as well as SEM, it can make your website appear after your ads.
Your ad will be shown, and then your SEO organic website pages will be shown below your ad. It gives your business more credibility because you have more visibility and information to offer your target market.
11. Don’t Forget About Retargeting
The final benefit you should be aware of when it comes to SEM ad is retargeting your target market.
While you may know about your target market and their behavior, some of your target market will not make purchases. You may have of your target market click on your ad, visit your website, maybe even put something in their cart, but yet they don’t make a purchase.
This is why SEM is so beneficial. It can help retarget users who may have visited your website or clicked on your ad. It can help you reignite someone’s interest in your business and increase your conversion rate.
Now You Know All About SEM Benefits
There are a lot of search engine marketing benefits to consider. This article highlights some of the most important benefits that can help your business drive in more traffic. It can help you connect with your target market and stay ahead of your competitors.
However, in order to receive these SEM benefits, you need to know SEM strategies. That is why it’s important to do research on your target market, keywords, and how to write ad copy.
If you are interested in a digital marketing review that assesses your current marketing strategy, you can sign up for the free review here.
Owner and Chief Marketing Officer, Jason Hall, and his team specialize in creating brand awareness / traffic and lead generation / marketing funnel and conversion optimization, while utilizing the appropriate marketing channels available within your industry. With diverse clients throughout the world, Jason's team is well connected within many industries to assist with your marketing strategies. With no long term contracts and various levels of service, Jason's team will increase the quality of your online traffic, leads, and sales.
About the author...
Located in the heart of the Emerald Coast - Destin, FL, founder and Chief Marketing Officer, Jason Hall, and his team specialize in creating brand awareness / traffic and lead generation / marketing funnel and conversion optimization / and PR campaigns, while utilizing the appropriate marketing channels available within your industry.
With diverse clients throughout the world, Jason's team is well connected within many industries to assist with your marketing strategies. With no long term contracts and various levels of service, Jason's team will increase the quality of your online traffic, leads, and sales.