For a local business competing for top positions on search engine results pages, it can often feel like you are fighting uphill…Big box stores with well-staffed marketing departments and marketing budgets bigger than your own are also competing for those positions. And getting to those top results’ levels is important. Studies have consistently shown that the top three sponsored search results garner between 50%-60% of clicks. The value of Google search result positions are like headlines in a newspaper, the first 3-5 results are above-the-fold.
What can you do to compete?
Rest assured that Google is keenly interested in delivering the best results and experiences for their users. If you can align your own search marketing strategies with those of Google, you can compete effectively and optimize your search engine marketing investments.
Firstly, let me share a brief overview of search engine marketing and how it works.
Search engine marketing (SEM) is the process of employing paid advertising and marketing tactics to help your brand, and its products and services, to appear higher in search engine results. SEM uses a pay-per-click model based on auctions for keywords. Companies competitively bid on keywords with the highest bidders appearing higher in the search engine results.
Search advertising is important because users reveal their intent, including buying intent, when they search. Aligning your business message adjacent to this revealed demand can be effective for your business.
The good news for local business is that the search results are not exclusively based on the highest bidder, there are other criteria that Google considers when displaying the best results they can.
Below are a few tactics to consider toward improving your position in search and optimizing your search marketing budget. These tips can help you to improve both your organic and paid search results:
- Improving Your Quality Score: Google employs a practice called Ad Rank which estimates the quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages. The relevancy of your advertising and the likelihood a user will click through to have a positive experience, including a well-considered landing page among other factors, are considered in your quality score.
- Writing Good Ad Copy: Write compelling ads that are relevant to your audience and encourage them to click on your website. You can make your ad copy stand out by making it urgent, addressing customer pain points, and making the path to conversion as frictionless as possible. Be certain to consider your target audience when designing your ad copy, your ads should be highly relevant to what users are searching for and immediately resonate with your target audience.
- Keyword Research: Research keywords to understand what your audience might be searching for and create ad copy to specifically address those queries. As well, consider keywords at different stages of the purchase journey. Keywords associated with buying intent (within the purchase stage of the customer journey) tend to have a higher cost-per-click, but a stronger ROI. If you have a smaller budget you may want to focus exclusively on keywords associated with buyer intent. If you have a larger budget, you may be able to incorporate keywords related to earlier stages of the customer journey.
- Another wise tactic for small businesses with modest search budgets is to employ a long-tail keyword strategy focused on keywords that are less competitive (i.e. expensive) while still relevant to your business.
- Landing Pages: Well-designed landing pages can help you to drive traffic, build your brand, and improve your search engine optimization (SEO). Landing pages should lead customers to specific products, services, or offerings based on their search. Be certain to optimize load speeds, user interface, and value proposition on your landing page; they all impact the conversion rate and your quality score.
- Ad Extensions: Including additional information in your ads via extensions to give searchers more information to consider will help improve your ad relevancy and conversion rates.
- Negative Keywords: Add negative keywords to your account to prevent your ads from appearing in unrelated searches. For example, adding the word “free” as a negative keyword to your campaign or ad group will tell Google not to show your ad for any search containing the term “free.”
- Competitor Research: Before investing in any type of marketing, particularly search, research your competition and the local market to understand the expected impact of your advertising and justify the expense.
These are just a few of the tactics you can employ to improve and optimize the effectiveness of your investments in search engine marketing.
If you’re interested in learning more about how to optimize your investments in search marketing, Sentinel Solutions can help. We have experts who will effectively incorporate search marketing into your integrated marketing campaigns and ensure you are optimizing every dollar invested in your plan.
Give us a call at 603-352-5896 or send us an e-mail to advertising@SentinelDigitalSoutions.com if we can be of help.
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