Search Engine Marketing

Websites rarely rank well for every search term that is desired. A marketing campaign can provide immediate visibility for more difficult terms and provide important exposure for your brand.  

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) refers to advertising that appears next to natural (organic) search results on search engines. Creating an AdWords campaign involves selecting a group of key word phrases, creating the related Ad copy, and then bidding the maximum amount you are willing to pay if someone clicks on your Ad. The Ads can be used to give your site visibility when you don’t rank organically or when you are looking to build name recognition. 

We are experts with the major SEM technologies, including Google AdWords, Yahoo Marketing, and Microsoft AdCenter. We can help you evaluate your budget, expand your existing list of keywords and key phases, and work with you to create special landing pages on your website. In many cases we can help you understand where you are spending money needlessly, and also identify areas where increased spending would be justified. 

We create and monitor campaigns to ensure that Ads and phrases with the highest conversion rate are maintained, and that poorly performing Ads and phrases are paused or deleted. We test and tune Ads and phrases for highest performance, monitor search phrases to identify new opportunities or trends, create targeted placement campaigns, and use the results of this data to make on-going improvements to your site. 

Do you need help with your SEM? 

I provide Search Engine Marketing Services for companies in the Huntsville AL area. I manage campaigns in Google AdWords, Yahoo Marketing (formerly Overture), and Microsoft AdCenter on a daily basis. If you are trying to drive more traffic to your web site, generate more leads, focus your marketing spending, and convert more of those leads into sales – We Can Help! 

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The following are some of the factors that you need to consider when preparing to launch a new marketing campaign: 

Getting Started / Open an Account

To get started, you will need to set up an account with each of the search engines. It’s painless and there is no initial cash outlay. Many of the hosting companies will give you ad credits for Google or Microsoft as an enticement to sign-up and the major search engines give these away at tradeshows and marketing events. These credits come in the form of a code and – like a coupon – there is a place to enter this code when you sign up.

Find Keywords and Phrases that Relate to Your Business

The first task is to determine an initial list of search words and phrases. Each of the search engine sites has tools to help you refine your list. You type in a word or phrase and the keyword tool will show you popular related words and phrases. Google has a keyword tool you can use without an account. There are also independent tools to do this, such as SEMRush and SpyFu, which will show you how you and your competitors rank for phrases.

In the case of Google and Microsoft, there are three variations on how words and phrases can trigger ads: these are known as “Broad”, “Phrase”, and “Exact” match. “Broad” means that any combination of the words can trigger the ad; “Phrase” means the ad can be triggered anytime all the words appear (in order)’ and “Exact” means only the phrase in the exact order without other words will trigger the ad. By comparison, Yahoo has “Standard” (exact match plus plurals) and “Advanced” (any combination that includes your phrase) matching. 

Bid Separately for Content

When you set up your campaigns, look for the “bid separately for content” option. Content ads appear on websites by matching the ad to the content of the page. This can be good if your ads are appearing on a page with expert commentary. However, there is big money in these ads and the temptation to generate fraudulent clicks can be very high for these sites. To be safe, you will want to bid separately on content ads and track the results or restrict your ads to search.

Create and Test Multiple Ads

We recommend that you generate multiple ads for each set of words. The ads should be worded to complete the words that call the ad.

For example, if you are using repair phrases “bicycle repair”, “wheel repair”. etc, you will want an ad that says something like:

Huntsville Bike Repair
Locally owned and operated
We service all makes and models
www.huntsville-bikes.com/repairs

By comparison, if you are using “buy phrases” like “sale”, “closeout”, “factory direct”, then you will want to have an ad that says something like:

Huntsville Bike Sale
We match internet prices
and offer local service.
www.huntsville-bikes.com/sale

Dynamic Keyword Insertion

There is also something called Dynamic Keyword Insertion (DKI). DKI lets you dynamically insert the search phrase. For example, if someone enters “cannondale bike sale” and you have phrase “Cannondale”, then you can use DKI to generate an ad like this:

Sale on (Cannondale) Bikes
Lowest Prices of the season on
(Cannondale) parts and accessories.
www.huntsville-bikes.com/cannondale

DKI can be especially useful when you are trying to deliver custom ads for a large number of items. Using DKI, each ad that is presented has a custom appearance that can be delivered dynamically from your list of phrases and keywords.

Landing Pages

Part of creating any campaign is deciding where the ad should take the searcher. This page is referred to as a “landing page”. While many ads dump the searcher at the front page of the website, it is usually a better idea to create custom pages that match the theme of the ad, orient the searcher to the site, and contain a clear call to action.

Tune for Performance

Each search engine has a slightly different approach to the same end. All will allow you to upload a spreadsheet of phrases and ads, which can dramatically reduce the time to set up your initial campaigns. While most people set up identical campaigns across the engines, the audiences for these search engines is slightly different and so each should be tuned individually. Break your campaigns up in to categories to address different needs and set a conversion metric to tune campaigns for optimum results.

Do you need help with SEM?

If you are trying to drive more traffic to your web site, generate more leads, focus your marketing spending, and convert more of those leads into sales – We Can Help!