What are the benefits and drawbacks of a search marketing?

Unless you have found the Sultan Mahmud’s gold bullion in our neighbour’s yard (read: Could Malacca treasure be Sultan Mahmud's riches?), you should ask the question “Why did the chicken cross the road?” as you carefully weigh the pros and cons before diving into search marketing.

If want to get really lucky, here is the map for the Malacca treasure:

Source: http://news.asiaone.com/news/malaysia/could-malacca-treasure-be-sultan-mahmuds-riches

Good luck joining the poor chaps who are hammering and drilling for the gold, they deserve a return on their money and efforts. Which brings us back to the real topic of returns: what are the returns for dabbling in search marketing? Every carrot seems to be tied to a stick, so what are the drawbacks?

The Story of Search Marketing

It is an internet marketing strategy for optimising your website and positioning it as ‘search engine’ friendly for the paid/sponsored and unpaid/organic searches. With over 2.5 billion internet users out there, it is vital for your marketing plan. To get started, you need Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) - your website content, layout and indexing, resources and tagging must be best practice. Give tips, info and resources that people want. SEO achieves highest unpaid listing for searches and helps Search engine marketing (SEM) to be successful too.

SEM takes over from SEO by promoting your website to increase the visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs). Millions and billions of people will know you by clicking the mouse. It include paid listing, contextual advertising and paid inclusion. 

Here is a neat diagram explaining what it involves:

 

Sources: https://www.thepamediagroup.com/sem-benefits/

How it Works

You become an advertiser in the search engine world now dominated by Google, Yahoo and BING, as well as Yandex, Baidu, etc for non-English speaking folks. Your website will appear on the top and right hand sides of the first page and receive the most click throughs. More web visitors means more sales opportunities. The magic of SEM!

It’s Always Carrot and Stick

We can quickly pick up the benefits:

• WWW never sleeps, so your website gets traffic 24x7. With over 94% of Internet users using search engines to find what they’re looking for, having an effective SM is vital!
• Cost is spread over returns - Using everything from location placement to network targeting, it is very targeted so when right prospects come knocking on your web door, it is easier to convert them into customers. 
• Fast to implement - website launch takes weeks and SEM campaign takes a few months to kick in, you get results within the same year unlike traditional media.
• Measurable and flexible – SM campaigns generate tons of data on user responses, you don’t need a crystal ball to spot problems. By directly linking your marketing dollars to returns, you can change tactics such as updating site content, different keywords instead of guessing what went wrong.
•  Maximise visibility – the more people find your website and easier, faster and before your competitors, you win a mile ahead. This is huge plus for your brand, organisation, sales and your job-safe-keeping.

 Now, for the drawbacks:

• SEM is often referred to as PPC or Pay-Per-Click advertising. As the name tells you - there are payments involved, and SEM or PPC can be very costly.
• The devil is in the details, and the complexity of managing SM campaigns can be overwhelming. Dealing with settings, targeting, and optimising strategies takes a lot of time and expertise. Expect more white hair!
• Competition doesn’t go away, including the mother-in-laws. Companies with deeper pockets and bigger teams dominate. Increased competition means higher costs of marketing for you, so be mentally prepared to out-spend, out-wit and out-play these buggers!

Food for thought:

"Research shows that organic search engine listings receive about 75 % of all traffic, while sponsored listings using SEM only receives 25% of the traffic. Still organic traffic and traffic gained through SEM converts almost equally to buyers in percentage of the clicks. A normal conversion rate is claimed to be 1%-3%. These conversion rates are good. You should then keep in mind that the increase of using Search Engine Optimisation SEO over Search Engine Marketing SEM is approximately 270%!”

Source: http://www.relevant1.com/benefits-of-sem.html