Search Engine Marketing

Why Search Engine Marketing Works!

Remember the good old days when putting a full-page ad in the local yellow pages resulted in tons of leads and sales. Well, unfortunately it doesn’t work anymore. Just like you and me, customers now jump on Google, type what they are looking for and voilà… In 0.36 seconds (give or take) they can find thousands of companies that provide what they are looking for.

If you think about it, search engines are the yellow pages on steroids. The difference is, now every company has a chance to have a full-page ad on every possible edition in the entire world.

The reason why search engine marketing works is simple. When you are at home watching TV and a commercial for a car dealership comes on, you might notice it if you haven’t already gone to grab something from the kitchen or simply changed the channel. When you type on Google, “Car Dealers in Brisbane”, you are actively looking for these businesses and you are more likely to take action (call them, visit their yard, etc).

Put simply, using search engine marketing is like having the option to hold a giant billboard in front of  your client’s face when they ask “where do I buy this?”

Great, but how do I start?

Did you know that 80% of people never go past the first results page? Search engines are so good that we actually believe we made a mistake if we can’t find what we are looking for on the first 10 results they show. So if your website isn’t in the top 10 for a particular keyword, chances are you are missing a lot of customers.

Nowadays, everyone talks about SEO, SEM, SEA, Landing pages and other weird acronyms. In our experience, the vast majority of business owners (and particularly small businesses) don’t really know what they stand for and what is the most appropriate for them. So here is a cheat sheet for you.

SEM – Search Engine Marketing

SEM, or Search Engine Marketing, puts your website to work to look for your customers. It sounds strange, I know, but it is in fact true. SEM includes any marketing or advertising strategies that are employed on your website to get your customers’ attention when they are searching for you.

SEA: Search Engine Advertising

If you want to get to the top quickly and cheaply, SEA is the way to go. Have you noticed the yellow section on top of Google marked as “ads”. Basically you can buy them, guaranteeing your website is shown whenever certain keywords are typed. The most common form of SEA is pay-per-click advertising, which means you only spend money for the consumers who actually click through to your website. Best of all, you can limit to the cent the amount you spend each day.

No matter how big or small your company is, we can tailor the campaign to suit your budget.

Landing Pages

This is SEA’s best friend. Put simply, they are pages on your website dedicated to promote a particular product or service you are promoting via search engine advertising.

The easiest way to explain it is giving you an example. If somebody types “Kitchen designer” on a search engine, it is far more effective to send them to a landing page containing great information for kitchen designs and photos of past projects than send them to a page where you also promote bathrooms, interiors and exteriors.

In other words, they are designed to make life simple for your customers. In “internet marketing speak”, the easier your make their life, the more likely they are to interact with your business.

SEO: Search Engine Optimisation

Ever wonder how search engines determine which sites are going to be showing on the first page? Well, making a really long story short, they ask a lot of questions to your website (in fact over 200). Search engine optimisation are techniques used to prepare your website to answer the search engine quiz.

Honestly, when it comes to SEO, there is no quick fix. It does take weeks (if not months) to achieve results and nobody (apart from search engines themselves) can guarantee your top spot. But when you get there, life is SWEEETTTT! Organic listings attract the majority of traffic (60% – 80%) across most search phrases in most industries.

What does this means for your business? If your website is awesome, it is time to hire a new receptionist because the phone calls will drive you crazy (in a good way)!