2017 has definitely been an exciting year in the immense world of search engine and social media marketing.
We have seen that search engine marketing, or SEM, is one of the most effective ways to grow your business in an increasingly competitive marketplace. With millions of businesses competing for the same audience & awareness, it’s never been more important to advertise online. Incorporating search engine marketing is by far one of the most effective way to promote your products, define your digital presence, and develop your business in the digital landscape.
Here are 5 tips to help enhance your SEM strategy and tools to help dominate your target market & audience.
1.) Mobile optimization is mandatory!
Last year, mobile generated more traffic than desktop and laptop search on average. We are in an age where using the smartphone or tablet to seek information online is more convenient to the end users. Therefore, business owners must cater to the needs of their mobile audience to generate the best leads and increase mobile conversions within the digital market.
2.) Search engine marketing strategies have matured to develop retargeting tactics
There are new opportunities to substitute paid search with more-targeted search engine marketing strategies. Retargeting – in the form of Remarketing Lists for Search Ads (RLSA) on Google and Universal Event Tracking (UET) on Microsoft Bing – offers strong opportunities to engage high-intent customers at considerably higher rates of conversion within a smaller pool of traffic. With the release of Bing’s new Universal Event Tag (UET) it allows advertisers to take advantage of the same search network retargeting strategies that have produced success in AdWords. Just like AdWords, you can now segment difference audience lists and apply bid modifiers to your strongest performing audiences as well as create RLSA search campaigns for broad keyword targeting.
3.) Follow the trends of new and upcoming ad changes to evolve your SEM strategy
It is important to stay in tune with current SEM trends as you facilitate your SEM strategy. Google’s “right rail” ads have been replaced with image-based product listing ads (PLAs). Expanded Text Ads (ETAs),will be replacing Standard text ads (STAs) after January 2017. ETAs are 2x’s bigger than current text ads and are designed to maximize your presence and performance on mobile search results with a bigger headline and an extra long description. This innovative decision was led by Google as they began thinking about what an AdWords ad would look like if they created AdWords in today’s mobile-first world, where more than half of the trillions of searches conducted on Google per year are done via a mobile device.
4.) Expanding your SEM strategies by corresponding with social strategies
Many businesses are still stuck in the traditional approach where they seperate both paid search and social in terms of their marketing approach. We know that important new insights from social can enhance search engine marketing strategies with more-targeted customer information and preferences. Many marketers are already utilizing social media to gain more visibility in search engines. When customers enter your company name, you must make sure that your social media profiles are seen on the first page. This should be further leveraged for your reputation management and monitoring. Various social media sites also now encourage long form content, especially platforms such as Facebook & LinkedIn.
5.) The best SEM strategies take advantage of geographic searches, which driving local conversions to the business directly.
It’s more important than ever for your search engine marketing strategies to include an intelligent geo targeting component that specifically targets high-intent prospects by location. There have been significant changes in how Google presents search results for local and geographic terms. Different search elements are used to provide immediate information regarding local businesses and companies within a defined region. Google
Oversoul Media Group is a great place to get started, allowing you to control multiple accounts from one central location and increase search visibility.