What is Search Engine Marketing (SEM)?

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a form of internet marketing that displays advertisements for your website on Google’s search engine results page (SERP) next to the organic listings. SEM fast tracks SEO’s lengthy process and enables you to achieve high visibility instantaneously. Other benefits of SEM are

• Quick Implementation
• Custom select keywords to trigger your ad
• Decide landing pages for each ad (what page the user will land on)
• Ads displayed to an audience already looking for your product
• Customized targeting based on language and geographic location
• Extremely measurable with KPI based on every possible variable
• Adjust and add keywords, ads, and ad groups at anytime
• And more…

Let’s take a look at where a SEM ad appears and what it looks like

All the ads along the top that are covered in a beige background and the ads along the right hand side are pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements. PPC means that anytime a searcher clicks on the ad, it will cost the advertiser a predetermined amount of money.

How much is a predetermined amount?

Determining your CPC (cost-per-click) is dependent on the competitiveness of a keyword and your quality score. “Hair transplant” is an extremely competitive market place for SEM and therefore, you’ll be expected to pay anywhere from $4 - $10 per click. Conversely, if you go with a less competitive keyword such as “asiago cheese”, competition is extremely low and you’ll be expected to pay anywhere from $0.20 to $0.50 per click. These amounts will vary depending on what ad positioning you desire and what the quality score of your website is. So in a nutshell, you can’t determine your budget for SEM until you find out how competitive the keywords are that relate to your industry/product.

What do you mean by ad positioning and quality score?

See my blog about quality score!

What makes up an SEM Campaign?

Keywords
After you discuss your goals and objectives for your SEM campaign (don’t worry, we’ll discuss that below), the next step is selecting keywords. There are 4 types of keyword matches that Google uses

“Phrase Match”
“Phrase match” matches exactly what’s in the parentheses and allows modifications before and after the key phrase. For example

“video cards” will trigger the following keywords

cheap video cards for sale
video cards in Canada
expensive video cards

[Exact Match]
[Exact Match] matches exactly what’s in the brackets and allows for no modifications. For example [video cards] will be only be triggered if the keyword is entered exactly as shown – video cards. This means “video card” or “videos card” will not trigger your ad.

Broad match
Broad matches allow your ad to be shown with similar phrases or variations. For example

ATI Video Card will trigger the following

Video card
NVIDIA card
Video output
ATI drivers
Cards for sale
ATI video cards
Etc

-Negative Match
Negative matches ensure your advertisement is not triggered by keywords that are undesirable such as “free” or “cheap”. For example

“video cards” with a negative match of –free

Free video cards -> will not trigger your ad
video cards for free -> will not trigger your ad

Ad groups
Ad groups should contain keywords that are related to each other in theme. For example, if you were Coke-a-Cola

Adgroup #1 – Coke Zero
Keywords: zero calorie pop, zero calorie soda, diet soda

Adgroup #2 – Dasani Water
Keywords: fresh water, cold water, awesome water

Adgroup #3 – Minute Maid Brand
Keywords: fresh orange juice, awesome orange juice, packages of orange juice

Keep in mind this is a very bare-boned example for basic understanding purposes. Advanced SEM campaign building will look much different with more concise keywords.

Ads
SEM advertisements are what we saw above in the screen shot. They are positioned to the right and on top of the organic listings.

Stop right there Chris. How do I get my ads at the top oppose to the side?

The ads ranked at the top in beige are positions 1 to 3. Your ad positioning is based on quality score and your CPC which is covered in my quality score blog.

SEM advertisements have guidelines and restrictions. The most immediate and noticeable one is character limitations.

Character limitations require clear and concisely written ads to ensure searchers are given enough reason to visit your website. There are many popular methods in writing ads such as “call to actions”, listing prices, limited time offers, promotional offers, etc. We will cover advertisement creation in another blog.

So let’s pull this all together and see what a semi-finished product looks like

You’ll notice that the keywords are very specific to the ads being triggered. The ad group listed as “PCI ATI Video Cards (Desktop)" deals with video cards made specifically for desktop in PCI format.

So what’s an example of another ad group within that campaign?

Another ad group could be “ATI Video Cards (Laptops)" with keywords such as “ATI graphics cards for laptops” or “laptop graphics cards”, etc

How many keywords, ad groups, and ads should I have?

There’s no definitive answer as to how big or small your campaign should be. It all depends on your products, goals/objectives, and more. The one cardinal rule I would follow is “the more specific, the better” and not necessarily “the bigger, the better”.

So where do I get started? How do I set up an account?

Before jumping into the fire, read my blog discussing how it's possible to hurt your website with search engine marketing… done reading? Ok, let’s move on

You can set up your Adwords account by going www.google.com/adwords. While it may seem apparent that the next step is to jump in and write down some keywords, adgroups, and ads, we need to take a step back and answer 3 important pre-SEM questions. While there are many sites that suggest anywhere from 10 to 60 pre-SEM questions, I like to keep mine simple and leave out as much wish-wash as possible.

1. What are my objectives with this SEM Campaign
   • Leads? Purchases? Traffic? Event sign up?
2. Is there a specific webpage/product I want to concentrate on
   • Excess inventory of X product
   • Upcoming event/promotion on X date
3. Do I have sufficient budget to create and run an SEM Campaign
   • Can I afford to do the SEM campaign myself
   • Can I afford outsourcing my SEM campaign
   • How competitive are my keywords
   • How elaborate of an SEM Campaign do I want

Take note of the order in which the questions are asked. We need to discover what we are hoping to attain in this SEM effort and if it’s worth while. Let’s use an imaginary company as an example

Sisco Inc. is a video card manufacturer that just finished their peak season which is May to August. They have excess inventory of there AA model which will be replaced by the AAA model next year.

Objective: Purchases/get rid of excess inventory
Specific Product: AA models

Siscos’ marketing manager (we’ll call him Jeff) takes a look and notices that their budget is dwindling due to all the promotional efforts that were exhausted during their peak season. Jeff decides to call an SEM specialist at Zero In and see what he suggests and what kind of budget he’ll be looking at. It turns out that the competitiveness for his desired keywords such as “Video cards for sale” and “Canadian video cards” are being calculated at a low CPC of $0.75. Furthermore, since Jeff only wants to concentrate on 1 product line, he would only need a limited SEM campaign which includes 1 adgroup, 3 ads, and 1 set of keywords.

Budget: Low competitiveness of keywords

Jeff decided to do the SEM campaign himself since a limited amount of work was required and the budget was already constrained with the consulting services that were utilized.

Budget: Can’t afford outsourcing. Jeff will attempt to do it himself

Jeff decides to check his SEM campaign 3 months later to see how things are going. He has a hard time deciphering the information and decides to call Zero In for more consulting services. It turns out that he sold half of his excess inventory and broke even. Impressed with his SEM know-how, Jeff decides to launch a similar campaign during his peak seasons to improve sales and decrease potential excess inventory.

Objective: Purchases
Specific Product: Numerous video card models (H3 Series, F6 Series, AAA, etc)
Upcoming Promotion: Free shipping on orders over $100
Budget: Large

Jeff launches a similar campaign but adds a few more adgroups, keywords, and ads. Since their peak season is in the span of 4 months, Jeff decides to check his campaign 1 month in. He notices that his ads aren’t displaying anymore and his minimum CPC is sky rocketing! Confused and in a panic, he calls Zero In for more consulting services. It turns out that he didn’t read “how to earn a high quality score” and “are you hurting your site with search engine marketing” blogs. Jeff had misjudged how elaborate the SEM campaign should have been which resulted in numerous SEM disasters.

• Keyword competitiveness increased due to peak season (higher CPC)
• Keywords were not properly grouped into specific adgroups (H3 series keywords were targeting F6 Series advertisements)
• Landing pages for all ads were designated as the home page instead of relevant pages (H3 series ad should land on H3 series webpage)
• Poor CTR due to lower ad positioning which decreased quality score and increased CPC
• Conversion tracking was not implemented for new checkout page which made it impossible to track sales
• And more…

Fortunately the mistakes were caught early enough and Jeff decided that he couldn’t afford not to hire Zero In. Subsequently, the mistakes were fixed and everyone lived happily ever after.

How do I avoid a situation like this? How do I know if I’m in over my head?

Contact Zero In for consulting services!