What is SEM?
Search Engine Marketing is the process of increasing web traffic from search engine results through the use of paid advertising. This method works by getting search engines to display websites with paid advertising on the top search result listing. Other than Google, popular search engines also include Youtube, Facebook and Amazon et cetera.
Measuring Factors of SEM
- Ad Impressions
Impressions are the number of times the marketed site or ad is displayed on the screen but does not necessarily mean that every visitor sees it. Impressions are important to a business because more impressions help with exposure and increase audience engagement.
- Clicks
In this category, we have the Click Through Rate (CTR) and Cost-Per Click (CPC). The CTR is the number of clicks attained by the website from visitors who have seen the ad. CPC is the amount you get when a visitor clicks on the ad.
- Cost Per Impressions (CPM)
CPM is the amount of money a marketer is willing to pay for each impression shown. CPM helps marketers calculate and determine the cost by dividing the amount spent on CPM campaigns to the number of impressions you attained.
Who Needs Sem and Why?
For businesses that are very new to the digital world would require implementation of SEM because they lack a strong stand to compete with those that already have their own group of existing customers in the digital world. SEM can help these small-medium enterprise or organizations new to the digital world to promote their branding and raise awareness.
Impressions play a huge part in doing so because frequent ad impressions can increase visibility, all the more important when the competition level is high and that a sense of presence is required to last in the field.
Under SEM, the search engine also displays ads with the matching keywords by audiences that have searched for it. The benefit of SEM therefore, allows businesses that implement SEM to be able to target interested audiences and increase the percentage of conversion.
If the business product or services has better recognition, sales and profit from a specific region, language or location, businesses can make good use of SEM to implement settings so that the displayed ad can be shown to interested and targeted audiences only.
Conclusion
There are many beneficial points in applying SEM and small-medium enterprises that lack a strong visibility and awareness can definitely gain something from implementing it. It is a way to maintain or even increase consistent traffic to the business web. From there, conversion rate can be strengthened too through the use of call to action on the page and businesses can then enjoy profit and sales by building a long lasting relationship with the consumers.
