Search Engine Marketing is one of the most effective ways to grow your business and reach new customers. What is SEM? Which tools are best supported for SEM? Let's explore them in the following article with Viindoo!
What is Search Engine Marketing (SEM)?
SEM, also called search engine marketing, involves utilizing paid advertising to guarantee that the products or services provided by your business are noticeable on search engine results pages (SERP). By using SEM, your business can show up as a search result when a user searches for a specific keyword.
For instance, consider what happens when I type "web development class" into Google:
Google search engine results
Udemy clearly has an effective SEO strategy, since its "web development class" page ranks first organically. However, their paid "web development class" ad, circled above, ranks as the first search result overall.
Benefits and importance of SEM
Digital marketing involves one of the most common methods of shopping among customers, which is online purchasing. SEM campaigns aim to increase the scope of digital marketing by discovering and utilizing keywords that can lure potential customers who are more likely to be interested in the marketer's product or service. In essence, SEM campaigns focus on targeting the most lucrative keywords.
SEM marketing efforts offer a major benefit by placing a company's product in front of potential customers who are actively looking to make a purchase, resulting in high conversion rates. For instance, a company purchasing an ad for a product keyword, such as "food processor," will have their product ad displayed first to searching customers for a food processor online. Through SEM, it is highly likely that visitors clicking on an ad have a genuine intention to buy, which can significantly boost a company's customer conversion rates and optimize their purchase intent.
Search Engine Marketing is a speedy approach that can generate an influx of traffic at a faster pace than SEO, which demands prolonged periods of analyzing keywords and crafting content based on SEO research. By positioning products and services at the top of SERPs, SEM immediately places them in front of customers, thereby increasing the chances of customer engagement.
Benefits and importance of SEM
The PPC model is an economical approach that operates similarly to the cost per engagement model and allows companies to pay only when their ad is clicked. Organizations can also regulate their expenses by specifying a maximum cost per click (CPC) and daily budget.
Higher organic rankings and trust signals can be achieved by driving increased traffic to a page via paid ads, which eventually leads to a boost in overall traffic to the page. This increase in traffic can also improve the trust signals evaluated by Google. In case a product performs exceptionally well through an SEM campaign, it can secure a high organic ranking on a SERP, making the use of SEM redundant.
In addition to utilizing keywords, SEM campaigns can customize their target audience by controlling the geographic location, language, and online behavior of their intended audience. This approach guarantees that their ad reaches only those users who might be interested in their product or service.
Organizations can gain profound knowledge about the performance of their SEM campaigns using tools like Google Analytics, which provide real-time, highly detailed reports on the status and development of their campaigns. These reports offer valuable insights into the efficacy of the SEM campaign ads, which help organizations analyze the campaign's performance and identify areas for improvement.
Don't miss out: How to increase website traffic most effectively?
What are the disadvantages of SEM?
Along with the remarkable benefits and advantages, Search Engine Marketing still has some limitations and drawbacks, including the following:
- Cost: Despite cost-effective models like PPC, SEM can become expensive over time as organizations are charged every time their ad is clicked on. SEO, on the other hand, does not incur any click- or ranking-related expenses.
- Competition: Depending on the target audience, purchasing ads and securing the top position on SERPs can be difficult and expensive. An increase in the number of companies vying for the top ad spot has led to a surge in CPC and related costs.
- Customer trust and ad blockers: A significant number of customers are averse to and distrust ads, resulting in them blocking them with ad blockers. Ads are perceived as intrusive and less reliable than inbound marketing techniques, which yield organic search results.
The difference between SEM and SEO
Online marketing has several terminologies with comparable meanings, which can often lead to confusion. Furthermore, these terms may have slightly different interpretations among various individuals. Here's a brief overview of the difference between SEM and SEO:
- SEM refers to the process of paying for advertisements that appear on search engines.
- Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to optimizing website traffic from search engines to increase traffic organically.
SEM vs SEO
The factors that influence organic search ranking include keywords, website content quality, and the number of backlinks. Improving SEO involves an initial investment of time and effort, but once a website gains a high ranking, the resulting traffic is free. In contrast, with SEM, advertisers pay for each click on their ads.
Learn more about: Top 5 best SEO Tools Rank Checker - From Free to Paid
List of the best SEM tools
Using an SEM toolset can eliminate the uncertainty involved in planning PPC campaigns, resulting in a reduction of unnecessary ad expenditure and a quicker achievement of a positive return on investment.
However, with numerous tools available in the market, it can be challenging to select the most suitable one for your business or clients.
The SEM tool is very useful for users
Below is a summary table by Viindoo that provides a brief introduction to SEM tools that can aid in optimizing SEM campaigns for businesses to generate conversions and quick profits.
| Best SEM Tools | About Tool | Features | Free Trials | Price |
| Semrush | Online advertising, social media, SEO and content creation tool. | - Generate 3,000 to 10,000 reports per day, - View 10,000 to 50,000 results per report, - Keyword metrics, - Product listing ads, - Historical data analysis. | 7 days | Pro: $99.95/month. Guru: $199.95/month. Business: $399.95/month. |
| Google Ads | Google Ad tool to promote website and products on the Google advertising platform. | - Create and manage Google Ads, - Keyword planner, - Pay for Results, - Set Budget Limits. | N/A | Cost based on Cost Per Click(CPC) or Cost Per Impression(CPI): $.01 - $2+ |
| WordStream | Online advertising tool for small businesses, advertisers, and marketing agencies | - Smart ad creator, - Keyword research tool, - Conversion and source monitoring, - Technical guide. | 7 days | WordStream Advisor: $199/month, WordStream Advisor with Premier Consulting: $448/month, WorStreamAdvisor for Agencies: $179/month, WordStream Managed Services: $1000 fixed fee plus 6-9% of spending. |
| SuperMetrics | An SEM tool for integration with various digital marketing platforms. | - Optimize PPC campaigns - Integrate with Google Analytics, Facebook, Bing, Adwords, Twitter, LinkedIn, - Google Sheets, and Google Data Studio. | 14 days | Integration with Google Sheets: $99/month. Integration with Data Studio: $39/month. Integration with Excel: $99/month. Integration with BigQuery: $190/month. Integration with Data Grabber: $19/month. Supermetrics Uploader: $39/month. Supermetrics Functions: $29.99/month. |
| OptyMyzr | Enterprise-grade digital marketing optimization tool for managing Google Ads, Bing Ads, and Shopping Ads. | - Digital campaign optimization, - Data insights, - Customized reports, - Custom digital marketing workflows, - Flexible Rule Engine/PPC scripts. | 2 weeks |
Pro: $499/month. Pro+: $799/month. Enterprise: Custom Quote |
Search Engine Marketing is an indispensable component in a business's marketing strategy. We hope that the article on Viindoo has provided you with useful information about SEM, helping you optimize and outperform your competitors to appear in front of users.
