SEM for beginners (Search Engine Marketing)

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SEM expert, Craig Somerville, General Manger at Reload Media, discusses what SEM is, why it’s important in marketing and what to expect when you engage an SEM professional.

Bonus: Download the 33 free templates from Web Marketing That Works.

Craig answers the following questions:

What is SEM (search engine marketing)?
What are the benefits of SEM?
How does Google determine where you rank?
What can clients do themselves to improve their own ads?
Why should a company engage an SEM professional rather than do it themselves?
How do you work out what keywords or phrases to optimise for?
Can you give us an example of that?
What sort of results have you seen from clients on your programs?
Finally, what can a Bluewire Media client expect when they start an SEM program with you?

What is SEM?

SEM stands for Search Engine Marketing which is essentially the paid advertisements you see above and to the right of your organic, traditional link in Google, Yahoo or MSN. SEM is essentially a paid form of advertising in search engines, sometimes also refereed to as pay-per-click.

What are the main benefits of SEM?

The main benefit of SEM is the degree to which you can target your ad to what your consumer is typing in. You can really target down to a particular niche or a particular market, just by what adjectives people are putting in front of their search phrases. If someone’s putting “cheap” or “budget” in front of a particular item that are you trying to sell, then you’ve got a bit of an idea of what the type of person they are, the type of consumer they are. Then we can tailor your ads to that particular market.

How does Google determine where you rank?

Google uses a number of things to determine who comes first in the order of payback. It uses, firstly, the amount that you’re getting per click and also what Google calls, your quality score which is a combination of a number of things – mainly your click-though rate and also the relevance of your landing page to the ad text.

What can clients do themselves to improve their own ads?

The best way to make sure your ads are improving and continuing to do well online is to make sure you’re running ads relevant to the search terms that people are typing in and obviously when they’re clicking on those ads, make sure the pages you’re taking them to are highly relevant to the product that they’re actually looking for.

Why should a company engage an SEM professional rather than do it themselves?

Engaging a professional has a number of benefits but the main one is the experience in which they have in knowing how to get the most out your money. The trick to succeeding online is making sure that your ads are actually going to turn into sales and into leads as opposed to getting a whole heap of unwanted clicks that just cost you a whole heap of money. It’s important that your ads are actually going to lead to a consumer or a customer who is actually making a purchase.

How do you work out what keywords or phrases to optimise for?

It’s not a case of trying to find keywords that might be beneficial or profitable to your company. It’s a case of taking your products or your services and trying to match them to keywords. There’s no point in trying to run a whole heap of keywords that don’t really match your business or the actual products you’re trying to offer. Your problem there would be having a whole heap of clicks from people clicking on those ads and no one would go through and make a purchase. It’ll end up costing you lots of money.

Can you give us an example of what you mean by that?

If you’re a web design company and you’re only offering high-end corporate, professional web design services, there’s no point going in big on keywords such as “cheap web design” or “budget web design” because it’s not something you can offer to your clients. You’re going to get a whole heap of people searching for cheap web design and if it’s not something that’s in your target market, then you’re just going to be wasting money.

What sort of results have you seen from clients on your programs?

The big thing with all our programs is we always try to measure the internal investment for the client. We try to work out how many dollars have returned to the client for every dollar they’ve put into AdWord or into an online marketing activity. With a lot of our clients now, we achieve internal investments of up to 15 or 20-1. We can measure how many dollars have returned to your business as a result of putting their dollar into Google.

Finally, what can a Bluewire Media client expect when they start an SEM program with you?

Any client who takes up an SEM program will be assigned a dedicated Google AdWord qualified professional who consults with the client on a whole range of issues in terms of what campaigns to use, what products they’re trying to sell online, what keywords to use and the landing pages they’re going to work with. From there, a whole campaign will be put together and that dedicated person will monitor and manage the entire campaign from start to finish and send them detailed reports about how it’s all progressing.

SEM Brisbane: For search engine marketing (SEM) programs with a Google Qualified Individual, contact Bluewire Media on 1300 258 394.

Bluewire Media is an official partner of Reload Media.

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About Adam Franklin

Adam Franklin is the bestselling author of Web Marketing That Works. He is an international social media speaker and CEO of Bluewire Media. His blog was Australia's #1 Business Blog and his podcast was #9 on the top marketing podcasts in Entrepreneur magazine. His work has featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur, The Australian, Sydney Morning Herald, Huffington Post and iTunes. Download the popular Web Strategy Planning Template which has been used by hundreds of thousands of businesses worldwide. His weekly 'Bluewire News' email goes out to over 32,000 readers.