Bonafide Marketing Genius

Online Search Marketing and Advertising Revenue – What Are the Facts?

Every day, people search the web. Some search ads even appear as sponsored posts on social media channels like Twitter. But what does that mean for your business? How valuable is search engine marketing (SEM), and what can you expect from it? Let’s dive into the facts.

Search Engine Marketing Relevancy

Whether you’re a large brand or a small business, you’ll want to utilize the services of a reputable digital marketing agency to help grow your company. One of the things they’ll help you realize is the importance of search engine marketing (SEM).

SEM is a form of online advertising that promotes your products or services through the use of keywords in the context of various search engines.

Often, you’ll want to target specific keywords for your industries, but this is not a requirement. Your agency will help you discover the right keywords for your business type and location. You can also look to see what keywords others are using to find similar services or products, and incorporate these into your own strategy.

Search Advertising Worth

You’ll typically pay for each click on a display ad or a link in a social media post when someone performs a search. Compare that to the cost-efficient practice of pay-per-conversion (PPC) for paid search, where you only pay when a visitor becomes a paying customer. For the sake of comparison, let’s assume you’re paying $5 per day for paid search and $10 per day for display ads.

So if your goal is to grow your business through paid search, the math is straightforward: Display ads are more cost-effective in terms of ROI than paid search. That doesn’t mean it’s not important, but it’s not as critical to your business as other forms of advertising.

Search Advertising Growth

In paid search, you’ll see growth very quickly if you target the right keywords. You can take this a step further and actually track the growth of your campaigns over time to see how Keyword Planner tools like Google AdWords can help you find the most profitable keywords and phrases for your industry and location. You can also look at the competition to see how you fare against your competitors.

With some effort, you can see significant growth in paid search, even if your initial strategy is quite limited. The fact is, when used properly, paid search is very capable of generating leads and sales. You’ll just need to put in the time to learn how to use it effectively. For more information, check out these blog posts from Google:

The Rise of Voice Search

While we’re on the topic of search, let’s discuss the rapidly growing trend of voice search.

This refers to the growing number of people who perform searches by speaking into a microphone or using a digital assistant like Alexa or Google Assistant.

One of the most popular digital assistants, Alexa, can perform numerous tasks for consumers, from ordering food to setting timers and alarms.

If your product or service is relevant to what the user is saying, you’ll reap the benefits of voice search. This includes a good mix of both commercial and non-commercial keywords. You’ll want to enter keywords and phrases into the Search Bar at the top of your Google page, and then select News Feed and Explore from the drop-down menus, to see content from both brand and non-branded sources.

Ask Alexa to search for an accountant in Boston, and you’ll see a stream of results from both professional and hobbyist accountants, as well as nearby businesses that provide other accounting-related services.

A voice search for “Boston accountants” will return over 20 local results, including Baker Tilly, which is one of the largest firms in the country.

This is just one example of the many tasks that Alexa can perform for consumers. If you want to learn more about voice search, read this blog post from Google:

Cost-Efficient Marketing

Even for large businesses that can afford the luxury of in-house marketing departments, outsourcing digital marketing is a smart move. Not only will you be able to set your own hours, but you’ll also be able to focus on important tasks like product development and sales.

In addition to saving you money, outsourcing to an experienced agency will give you access to experts who can help you find the right people for your business. If you’ve ever tried to market your business yourself, you’ll know how difficult it can be to find the right people who can help you take your business to the next level. It may also cost you money to hire employees to help with marketing. Outsourcing to a digital marketing agency is a smart move for any business.