In the modern era, having a strong online presence is essential for businesses to connect with their customers. The problem is that everyone knows that, making for a very crowded online landscape where it can be difficult for small businesses to stand out and get the attention of their customers.
Using Search Engine Marketing (SEM) techniques is one way to go about this. If you’re not familiar with this term, it refers to a strategy of promoting your business in online searches through targeted paid advertising and other methods, with the goal of ranking higher in your customers’ searches.
While this may sound like a complicated marketing term, the truth is there’s no magic to mastering SEM for small business owners. It just comes down to understanding a few key concepts about how search engines rank results and adjusting your content and ads to match. Here are 4 simple search engine marketing strategies that can help to boost your organic search traffic.
1. Use local SEO and Google Local Services Ads.
Search engine optimization, or SEO, goes hand-in-hand with SEM. This is a slightly different concept that aims to make web pages more appealing to search engines, primarily through website optimization and the use of keywords.
Some general small business SEO best practices include:
- Researching what keywords people use to search for your business and integrating them into your ad copy and website text
- Ensuring that your site is easy to navigate with fast-loading pages that are optimized for mobile SEO as well as searches on computers
- Linking between the pages encourage users to click on more pages when they land on your website
- Getting backlinks from other websites by writing guest posts, using services like HARO or Featured, or writing useful content that other websites will want to cite
- Ensuring that relevant keywords and descriptive information is included in your pages’ titles and meta descriptions
One thing to keep in mind regarding small business SEO is that you’re not necessarily trying to capture the attention of everyone on the internet—just the people who might be your customers, which is probably people in your area. Because of this, it can be more effective to focus on local search optimization approaches.
There are a few ways you can go about this. One is to integrate local keywords as well as general ones for your industry. Another big part of this is Google My Business optimization. You can do this by ensuring your Google My Business profile is complete, accurate, and correctly categorized. Doing this makes your business more visible to local customers and shows Google that you’re a relevant result for future searches.
Google also has Local Services Ads that can be a very effective form of search engine marketing for small businesses. These will make your business show up as a sponsored result when people search for related terms, and can be another way to drive more traffic and engagement with your brand. It also helps to respond to Google reviews, which shows search engines that you’re responsive to your customers’ needs.
2. Leverage Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising.
Also known as cost-per-click (CPC), pay-per-click advertising is a model where you pay only when a user clicks on your ad. These ads can appear in search engines, on websites, or on social media platforms. To get your ad to show up, you bid a certain amount that you’ll pay for the ad. The more popular the site or keyword, the more you’ll likely need to bid.
There are many advantages of PPC for small business owners. For one, you’ll only pay when someone actually engages with your ad. This makes it a cost-effective way to drive more traffic and gives you control over your advertising budget. You can also easily measure the results of these campaigns and target them easily to those specific users who will be the most likely to buy.
Of course, since you’re paying for these clicks, you also want to make sure you’re targeting the right users to get the most out of your budget. Here are some tips for maximizing the effectiveness of PPC campaigns:
- Use long-tail keywords. Long-tail keywords are more specific, usually consisting of three or more words. This means they have a lower search volume, but are also less competitive and can be a better way to target customers searching for your specific type of product or service.
- Use negative keywords to rule out irrelevant searches. Negative keywords are terms that might seem similar to your search but actually aren’t relevant to your business. By ruling these out, you can prevent wasted clicks (and the bids for them).
- Optimize your ad copy. The text of your advertisement should match the intent of someone searching for your target keywords. It should also include a strong call to action and highlight the unique selling points of your business to encourage more users to click and buy.
- Create dedicated landing pages for your ads to go to. A landing page is a specific type of web page that just focuses on a single product, service, or segment of your audience. When ads lead to a landing page, customers can quickly learn about the specific thing they’re searching for, which makes them more likely to buy.
3. Use ad groups and landing pages to improve your click-through rates.
This is a related tip to the one above, but important enough to deserve its own heading. We already mentioned that landing pages can be very valuable. By pairing these with specific PPC ad campaigns to directly target the most relevant keywords, you can maximize the value of your advertising and give your website traffic a huge boost.
This does mean you’ll need to create multiple different ads, which can be more work up front. If you want to maximize your advertising budget, though, that extra time spent will be well worth it.
Essentially, this strategy involves creating a landing page for each product, service, or offer that you want to promote. Then, you come up with a list of keywords relevant to it, and connect those keywords to 1-2 ads that will go directly to the connected landing page if clicked. You can do this for as many different items as you want.
By structuring your ads this way, you’re taking full advantage of the power of targeted advertising. Each customer will see a specific advertisement and landing page that is the most relevant for them, and that greatly increases the odds they’ll click and make a purchase.
4. Enhance your SEM efforts with content marketing.
While this is technically more of an SEO approach, having popular content helps you to rank higher in search results overall, which in turn gets more attention from search engines. Content marketing for small businesses is one of the most affordable digital marketing strategies because it’s free (or close to it) to create, letting you instead devote your advertising budget to promoting it and getting more views.
Content is a catch-all term for anything you create to be viewed by people online. This can include blog posts and articles, infographics, photos, videos, or audio recordings like podcasts. While it’s often smart to use a variety of different content formats, the best ones to focus on will depend on your business. If you’re in a visual industry like landscaping or interior design, then before-and-after photos of past jobs can be very effective at showing customers what you’re all about. On the other hand, for something like an accounting or law firm, then white papers, case studies, or reports could be a better option.
The most important thing with content marketing is to create relevant content that will provide real value to the people who use it. The better you’re able to do this, the more like it will be to generate organic views, shares, and backlinks.
Once you’ve created the content, the next step is to promote it. You can do this for free by posting it on your social media channels or putting it in newsletters to your subscribers. You can also use the PPC options described above to advertise specific content that you think will help to grow your audience.
Measuring your SEM success
Whichever of these online advertising tips you employ, you shouldn’t assume they’ll work perfectly the first time and call it a day. Taking an iterative, scientific approach to your digital marketing makes it much easier to see what works and what doesn’t, then use that knowledge to improve your strategy over time.
The first step to doing this is understanding what the key performance indicators (KPIs) are for your ad campaigns. This can mean doing some research into the more nitty-gritty side of digital advertising, which can be a slog at first. Again, though, that time spent can be worth the investment, paying off in higher sales and a bigger online footprint that will draw even more customers to you in the future.
Digital advertising strategies like SEM can seem overwhelming at first, but the truth is they’re not too complicated once you start to understand the core concepts. Hopefully this article has helped you to do just that so you can unlock the power of SEM to grow your small business.
