Does your marketing portfolio include Search Engine Marketing? If not, you are leaving a lot of money on the table. Your competitors are probably laughing on their way to the bank.
Many years ago, it was perfectly fine for companies to focus only on conventional marketing. Some examples of conventional marketing includes trade shows, email marketing, yellow pages, direct mail, and media advertising. In the current unstable economic climate, these traditional marketing methods are becoming less effective. As a result, most companies decided to take the wait and see approach. They are lowering the budget spent on these campaigns. In fact, some companies have even stopped marketing altogether.
Unfortunately, this is not a wise move. You are missing out on many great opportunities and your competitors are picking up the pieces that you have left on the table. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) when done correctly can put you way ahead of your competitors even during a period of recession. Just take a look at the increase of online purchases over the years. It is an opportunity you don’t want to miss out.
Nowadays, consumers are more willing to buy things online due to the improvement in online security. Given the ease of online shopping and the convenience of buying things with just a few clicks of the mouse button, it is a no brainer for consumers to shop on the Internet. Statistics show that more and more people are relying on the search engines to research and purchase products online.
The key to success with SEM is to have someone who knows how to manage and run a campaign based on the size of your industry. Good online visibility is a must if you want to attract more visitors to your website. Obviously, your website needs to be functional and easy to use if you want to sell products or services online.
In any advertising campaign, it is important to track your ROI. An SEM campaign is no exception. The good thing is that you can get a very good ROI with a successful SEM campaign. You can expect a 10:1 or as much as a 60:1 ROI. With a 10:1 return of investment, you can spend $1000 on your advertising campaign and expect to receive back $10,000 in additional sales.
Unfortunately, most websites on the Internet are not designed to convert traffic into sales. Most websites look like online brochures. These websites are boring and doesn’t fuel your visitors’ desire to buy from you. They don’t have the information that your visitors are looking for in order to make an informed purchase. Nowadays, there are millions of websites on the Internet. One way to have your website stand out from the crowd, is to hire an SEO expert.
When it comes to Search Engine Marketing, there are two main options. The first option is search engine optimization (SEO). The second option is Pay Per Click (PPC). You can choose one over the other or you can go for both options. It all depends on your budget and how you want to target your potential customers.
Usually, SEO will deliver better results and is longer lasting. However, it takes more effort and you may not see any noticeable results initially. It can take anywhere from 3 to 6 months for your website to get ranked, depending on the competition level of the keywords you are using. Many companies are unwilling to invest in an SEO campaign because of the time taken to see results. However, companies that are willing to pursue SEO will be able to get free traffic from the search engines for a long time thereafter.
If done properly, SEO can give you the biggest ROI. Compared to Pay Per Click, Search Engine Optimization can often bring you five to seven times more targeted visitors to your site and the conversion rate for SEO traffic is usually much higher compared to PPC.
It is definitely worthwhile to include either PPC or SEO as part of your marketing campaign. After all, the traditional marketing methods are losing their effectiveness as time goes by and without SEM, you may find it harder and harder to attract new customers to your business.
