You’ve heard the term used in a YouTube video from your favourite internet marketer, or have seen it pop-up in a few articles about digital marketing, but you’re not really sure what SEM is.
And does it have anything to do with SEO?
In this blog post, we’ll cover these and other topics related to SEM. We’ll explore the relationship between SEM and PPC, explain the difference between SEM and SEO, and share how you can use this marketing method to grow your business.
What is SEM and can it Help Grow Your Business?:
什么是SEM？
SEM (Search Engine Marketing) is the systematic process of attracting website traffic by purchasing advertisements on search engine advertising platforms.
Sounds like a mouthful, but it’s really easy to understand once you know how it all works.
Search engine marketing was born in the 90s. Search engines needed a way to monetise their platforms and so SEM business models were created.
Today, SEM is big business. In fact, a large chunk of Google’s USD 135.22 billion in revenue in 2018 was attributed to their search marketing business.
Image:Statista
What Does SEM Look Like?
There’s a good chance that you’ve been exposed to SEM. Actually, there’s an even better chance that you’ve interacted with SEM on numerous occasions.
How do you spot SEM?
Here’s are a few examples of SEM in action:
The Display Ad
In this example, Google serves up a collection of plumbing businesses each with ratings. The ratings are based on customer reviews. Note the word “Sponsored” highlighted in yellow.
A Pay-Per-Click Ad
这是最常见的SEM AD类型。它是基于文本的，也是高度定位的。企业使用这些吸引客户寻找服务的客户。
Note the word “Ad” that appears before each URL.
When an advert from a business appears in search engine results and is clicked on by a user, the business is then charged by the search engine platform. Hence the term “pay-per-click.”
How Does SEM Work
These, and many other ads like these, are used by businesses around the world. Google, like Bing, Yahoo! and other search engines offer brands the opportunity to bid for keywords that users type into their search engines.
搜索引擎已经建立了复杂的广告平台。188滚球地址它们由AI，算法和机器学习提供动力。这些平台负责188滚球地址为品牌想要用来创造更多业务的广告提供服务。
竞标和竞标广告
搜索引擎使用招标方法来为企业创建竞争格局。该框架通常包括为每个企业可以运行的广告设置出价价格的选项。
SEM vs PPC?
PPC或按点击广告是SEM的一种形式。PPC允许企业为他们为搜索引擎创建的广告进行的每次点击付费。使用PPC，企业能够创建各种广告（AD组）关键字集合，搜索引擎用户将使用这些关键字来查找企业服务。
Advertising Budgets
Search engine marketing platforms also allow businesses to set limits on their daily, weekly and monthly spending. This is helpful, especially if your business has a fixed budget or is testing an ad group to find the highest converting ad.
预算的价格可能从上升10美元不等。正如您想象的那样，预算越大，获得更多潜在的买家和测试广告组就越容易获得最佳结果。
SEM vs SEO? What’s the Difference?
回顾一下，SEM用于通过在搜索引擎广告平台上购买广告来吸引网站流量。188滚球地址
Search engine optimisation or SEO is also used to generate traffic for a website. Unlike SEM, SEO is used to rank website content organically (without paid advertising). SEO also takes longer to generate results (often between 3 to 6 months), where SEM can can take hours and days.
SEO分为两部分，页面上的页面和页面外SEO。这是每个涉及的内容：
页面SEO
页面上的SEO关注网站页面上出现的所有元素的优化。这包括优化页面标题，标题，确保网页包括关键字使用的正确卷，并使用搜索术语进行了优化的图像。
页面SEO
页面外SEO就是建立与搜索引擎相关性的正确连接。这涉及从相关和知名网站中获得反向链接，并包含社交共享信号（来自social media) and a host of other factors.
SEO正在成长并不断发展。迄今为止，据报道，当Google将一个网站排在另一个网站之上时，估计有200多个排名因素。
尽管他们以不同的名称并涉及不同的策略，但SEM和SEO旨在实现相同的目标：帮助企业产生更多的认识，潜在客户和销售。
Is SEM Expensive?
SEM的成本取决于市场。对于诸如Google，Bing和Yahoo！之类的搜索引擎，创建竞争市场是其商业模式的核心。这意味着拥有最多钱的品牌应该赢，对吗？
Well, not exactly.
多年来，搜索引擎已经发展了其算法，以帮助企业优化广告支出。例如，SEM世界中最受欢迎的主题之一是Google质量得分。
质量分等级Google assigns to your keywords and PPC ads. This is an important metric because it ultimately influences how much each click will cost your business.
Your Quality Score is also assigned once multiple factors have been considered by Google.
These factors include:
-
- 您的点击率(CTR). This the amount of people who click on your ad after seeing it in search engine results.
- 每个关键字与广告组的相关性。与广告组无关的关键字会导致得分较低，而高度相关的术语可以提高分数。
- 着陆页质量和相关性。While choosing the right terms is essential, where you direct traffic to is equally important. Your landing page must include ad scent elements. These elements help visitors quickly identify or see the relation between the advert and the landing page. This includes the messaging and imagery you use.
- The relevance of your ad text。The right messaging goes a long way. Text relevance, therefore, influences how effective your ad is at helping users find the information they need.
- Your historical Google Ads account performance。This includes how well previous campaigns have performed.
Why does all of this matter?
Google and other search engines have one goal: to provide their users with the most accurate information or any topic they are interested in. Therefore, if your advert is less than helpful, Google won’t want to create a poor user experience and will rather return a more optimised and relevant result.
How can you use SEM for Your Business?
SEM should form part of a larger digital marketing strategy. It can be used in various ways, but most importantly, it should always be tied to business goals (think creating awareness, generating leads and sales).
Here are four tips to bear in mind as you create your SEM strategy:
Know Your Goals
像所有营销一样，必须将SEM与业务目标联系起来。您需要产生更多的潜在客户或销售吗？还是您专注于对刚刚推出的新产品提高知名度？
Whatever the cause, SEM is based on intent and is, therefore, one of the most powerful marketing avenues available. But to generate results, you must know what you’re gunning for and why.
最大化您的预算
While access to an unlimited budget would be every marketer’s dream, it’s just not feasible. Maximising your budget becomes essential. There are various ways to accomplish this, from removing negative keywords from ad groups to performing conversion rate optimisation to improve return on ad spend.
Perfect Ad Scent
广告气味可能是SEM较忽视的方面之一。这是因为营销人员通常会花费大部分时间来创建最强大的广告。尽管有些人专注于着陆页并提供有吸引力且用户友好的体验，但他们以某种方式错过了转换访客的机会。
When creating your landing pages and ads, create a clear correlation between both. As mentioned earlier, search engines want to create the most pleasurable experiences for their users. If your ad and landing page don’t provide what visitors is after, you’ll lose money and generate poor results.
When optimising your ads and landing pages, here are a few elements to pay attention to:
- 使用与广告有关的登陆页消息传递刚刚单击的访问者
- 使用与目标页面上的消息相关的图像
- Include trust symbols where necessary (think SSL security site seals)
- Use social proof to build credibility
Image:Instapage
Use Split Testing to Generate Better Results
Split testing is used to compare ads and landing pages with different designs and messaging. The goal is to determine which works best and then to scale your marketing by channelling more funds to the more successful option.
您应该将测试每个广告和登录页面进行拆分。这将帮助您产生结论性数据，以支持未来的广告支出和广告系列。
使用SEM时哪些指标很重要？
有许多指标usi时您可以跟踪ng SEM. Most marketers, however, would argue that return on ad spend or ROAS is the most important.
What is ROAS?
ROAS is a way to determine the average return for your advertising spend on adigital channel(想想谷歌PPC)。
For example, let’s say you own an e-commerce store. You spend $200 on ads monthly and generate $800 in sales.
为了计算营销的效率，您将使用以下ROAS公式：
收入 /广告支出= ROA
800 / 200 = 4.
这意味着您每花费的每一美元都会产生$ 4。
Why not use ROI?
与ROA不同，ROI占业务在其产品和服务方面的利润率。ROI通常也用于测量全部marketing. Using the same figures from above, and a margin of 20%, here’s what an ROI calculation looks like:
(((Turnover x Margin Rate) - Expenses) / Expenses) x 100 = ROI
（（（（800 x .2）-200） / 200）x 100 = -20
ROI appears to be negative. This means your campaign is not worth the investment according to the ROI it generates.
如您所知，ROI和ROA的应用具有不同的能力（ROAS可跟踪PPC广告的性能和ROI，以衡量您的整体营销成功）。
这意味着您应该一起使用它们，但在正确的上下文中应用它们。
结论
SEM is the process of using paid advertisings to generate traffic for a website. As part of a larger数字营销策略，这是捕获快速结果的好方法。SEM是希望吸引新客户并增加收入的企业的理想选择，但他们应该注意使用SEM的复杂性。
Knowing which metrics influence their spend and how to track and improve them is crucial. With a firm grip on these and other important elements, brands will be able to systematically produce better results, save more money on SEM, and scale their growth.
