What are the benefits and drawbacks of a search marketing

SEM is a form of targeted marketing that allows us to be able to advertise our business on search engine results pages. This involves bidding on keywords so that our ad is shown when those particular keywords or phrases are searched.  We then pay the bid amount every time someone clicks on the ad. SEM is advantageous because it allows us to target very specific audiences who are actively searching for our offering.

Advantages:

Get in front of a large audience

Search Engine Marketing gives us the ability to get our company name and services in front of a large, interested audience. In Google, alone there are over 400 million queries a day. Obviously not all would apply to our business, but we can get an idea of how many people we may be able to reach. The more visible we are to interested searchers, the more opportunities we’ll have to capture new customers.

Be as targeted as you want it to be

One of the main advantages to SEM is that it can very targeted.  Besides being able to bid on specific relevant keywords and phrases, platforms like Google Adwords allow us target based on specific devices, locations, times of day, and languages.

Cost effective

SEM can be very cost efficient. It’s cheaper than traditional forms of advertising such as TV or Radio, and it’s also better targeted. Since we’re only paying for clicks to keywords or phrases relevant to our business, it allows us to spend our marketing dollars wisely.

Disadvantages:

SEM requires time and ongoing maintenance

Search engine marketing requires that we monitor and update our campaigns constantly. It takes time to figure out the right combination of ad text, targeting, and bidding. That’s why testing is a critical aspect to SEM, in order for our campaigns to ultimately be successful and profitable. Whether it’s making sure our spend isn’t getting out of control, or testing different ad copy to see what works best, we could be missing out on opportunities if we’re not constantly monitoring and analyzing our results.

Can be cost prohibitive

Even though we previously stated that SEM was cost efficient, it can also be cost prohibitive depending on our space/ industry. Popular keywords can be very expensive sometimes costing $30 dollars or more per click. Since PPC advertising is essentially an auction system, it may be tough to out bid competitors with deeper pockets and larger budgets.

Also if we don’t have the necessary expertise, which most people don’t, we may not be running our campaigns as best as we could and therefore be overspending. We may need to invest a little time getting up to speed.

Conclusion

Having a well-rounded online presence is essential to our business growth and SEM is a great way to do it. The advantages of SEM can outweigh the disadvantages, but every company is different. SEM is definitely worth trying out – Use a small test budget to see if it works for our biz. By focusing on longer keyword tail phrases, we may be able to narrow in on more profitable phrases with less competition, therefore keeping our marketing spend down.