What’s the first thing most people do when they’re looking to find a new business, answer a question, or solve a problem? They go to a search engine. Around 93% of all web traffic is via a search engine, which is why it’s important for your business to have a meaningful presence to be found by potential customers.
While a great SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) strategy benefits your business’ presence in search engines, the other crucial component is paid search advertising otherwise known as Search Engine Marketing (SEM) or Pay Per Click (PPC). Paid search helps your business be found on search engines for queries related to the product or service you provide, to drive visitors to your website, generate leads, and increase brand awareness.
Companies that combine organic SEO and PPC ads see 25% more clicks and 27% greater profits compared to using just one technique. Paid search ads appear based on the keywords a user searches for and in the location they’re searching from. With paid search ads, you pay for each click on your ad (which is why paid search ads are also called pay per click ads).
Search engines may be huge, but you don’t have to be a big business to use them. Businesses of any size and with any budget can use and benefit from paid search ads. We’ve put together some tips on how your business can make the most of search advertising.
🎯 Set the right goals
Start by asking yourself, how will you decide if your campaign is successful? No business is the same. Your business’ strategy will be focused on who your customer is, how you approach new customers, and how much you’re willing to pay for that customer. Think about what this means for your business as you’re setting your goals. Once you have set realistic and attainable goals, it’s much easier to build a campaign around these.
🔎 Run ads on multiple search engine platforms
When it comes to search advertising, many businesses rely on Google Ads alone. While Google Ad campaigns are an integral part of a successful search advertising strategy, you can achieve better results by running your search ads across several platforms, including Bing. Running ads across multiple search engines gives you access to more inventory, meaning more opportunities for clicks and conversions.
Protip: Be sure to optimise your budget for the placements and keywords that work best on each individual platform.
💸 Choose the right budget
To get the best results, it’s important to set and optimise the right budget for your search ad campaigns. For small businesses, a search ad campaign can take longer to achieve the results you want. It’s important to understand that you must invest to get ideal results, but also that PPC is a long-term investment.
📓 Identify the right keyword strategy
Certain keywords can be more expensive, and they may not drive the best results for your business. By finding the right keyword strategy, including a varied mix of keywords and keyword phrases you can see what’s working to drive the most calls and clicks for your business.
Protip: Choose keywords that align with where your customers are in the sales funnel (awareness, interest, decision or action) to increase clicks and conversions.
💻 Create high-converting landing pages
One of the best ways to improve your click-through rate and your Quality Score (which is something Google looks at when deciding both your Ad Rank and your cost per click) is to optimise your landing pages around your search advertising campaigns.
The more your landing page ties into your search ad copy, the better chance you have of converting leads. It’s also important for your landing page to have a clear call to action, load quickly, and be optimised for mobile devices. If your website is not doing its job well, you could have the best CPC (cost per click) and CTR (click through rate) in the world, but it will never convert leads.
📱 Make your search advertising mobile friendly
Mobile devices (excluding tablets) generate 54.4% of global website traffic. As more people search on mobile devices, it’s crucial to ensure that your website and landing pages are optimised for mobile.
Protip: If you’re noticing that the conversion rate is down for your landing pages and website, check to see if they’re taking too long to load and that all features are working properly on your mobile device. B fixing any issues, your search campaigns will achieve better results.
We’re here to help!
Need to drive real leads, fast? LocaliQ is here to help. Our SEM solution is proven to perform, using our proprietary technology to publish and optimise your ads across Google and Bing search engines. We can scale your SEM solution to suit your budget for the best return on investment. Let us work with you to determine your marketing goals and create a SEM strategy to maximise ROI (Return on Investment). Contact us today.
Jayde Nguyen