For businesses, a growing audience is synonymous with greater conversion rates and CTRs on their digital platforms. This is especially true for new or local companies, who always seek solutions to boost their reach.
A significant share of web traffic is generated through online search engines, with Google emerging as the top player with 83.49% market share, followed by Bing (9.19%). Search marketing is one of the most effective ways to grow your target audience. However, simply implementing search marketing is not enough — you must do it right to see desirable results.
Learn how a comprehensive search marketing strategy helps captivate your audience and expand your online reach.
What Is Search Marketing?
Search marketing, also called search engine marketing, refers to tools and techniques that help businesses fulfill their goals by leveraging search engines. Search marketing techniques enable web pages to appear at the top of search engine rankings, improving brand visibility and generating website traffic.
There are two primary components of search marketing:
- Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) – Improves visibility organically by enabling webpages to rank higher on search engines
- Pay-Per-Click (PPC) – Placing paid ads at the top of SERP that lead users to your business website
Benefits of Search Marketing
Search marketing is a simple and effective way to widen your customer base. Some of the benefits of search marketing include:
- Improving brand awareness – Search marketing strategies increase your brand’s visibility and products, boosting brand awareness.
- Driving organic traffic – Optimising website content and crafting effective SEO strategies drive traffic to your desired online channels.
- Improving user engagement – Search marketing boosts click-through rates, increases session length, and reduces bounce rates.
- Generating greater revenue and conversions – Search marketing encourages visitors to click on CTAs, boosting conversions and sales.
- Capturing local audiences – Targeted PPC campaigns enable netizens to explore local businesses and contact them through digital channels.
Leveraging Search for Growing Your Audience
Now that we know about the benefits of search engine marketing, it begs an important question: How do you expand your target market using search marketing?
Here’s how:
Plan ahead
Define the goals you want to achieve with your search marketing strategy before implementing your search campaign. Planning for your SEO and PPC strategy in advance is the best way to ensure its success.
Know your audience
Businesses need to define their target audience before setting about to capture them. Segregating your audiences into different target groups enables you to craft unique search strategies to capture them best. On the other hand, knowing their pain points and problems allows you to craft content and campaigns that aim to solve them.
Focus on usability
According to Google guidelines, site usability is key to boosting SEO and ranking higher on search engines. User experience (UX) can be improved by lowering site loading speed, enabling responsive design, and focusing on mobile-friendliness.
Crafting CTAs
Call-to-action (CTA) buttons on your website should add more value to your prospect’s online experience. Be sure that your CTA buttons are proportionate to other elements on your website and are easy to click or tap. Use actionable CTAs that strategically guide visitors to convert.
Optimize site content
The content on your website should be original and meaningful and provide valuable information to users instead of pushing them to purchase. Use primary and secondary keywords wisely, and write in short sentences. Aim for concise content that includes bulleted and subheading points.
Get creative with PPC
Paid ads are shown to users based on their browsing history and preferences. This is one of the strengths of PPC since it allows companies to create different ads for different target audiences. You can customize landing pages to fit the different buyer personas you cater to, facilitating higher engagement and CTRs.
Search Engine Marketing: Tips And Tricks
Now that you know some basic search marketing concepts, here are some tips to help you maximize your search marketing campaign outputs.
- Keyword placement matters
We know that using the right keywords is necessary for SEO. However, what you might not know is that the placement of the keywords in the content also matters. Placing target keywords in the title tag and webpage URL and including them in the first 150 words of your web content ranks content higher on SERPs.
- Rework zombie pages
Zombie web pages do not draw much organic traffic and show heavy bounce rates. This could be because the page has low-quality content or is not optimized for SEO and mobile-friendliness. You can revamp zombie pages to be discovered by search engine crawlers or remove them entirely if they no longer serve a purpose for your business.
- Include alt text for images
Alt text is the unsung hero of SEO. Adding alt text to images on your website not only makes it accessible for visually impaired individuals but also makes it easier for search engine bots to index your image. These, in turn, enable your website to rank higher on search engines.
- Use of ad extensions
While creating ads for paid search, companies often forget to include useful ad extensions that directly benefit their target audience. These extensions include site links, call extensions, promotional extensions, and product extensions. Adding structured extensions that mention the categories a product or service falls under allows customers to learn about the product at a glance.
- Include internal and external links
Providing internal site links encourages users to visit your product pages and blogs, giving them more information and encouraging them to convert. Meanwhile, linking external websites with high authority increases the credibility of your web content.
Search Marketing Mistakes To Avoid
While search marketing has its merits, it is vital to look out for common mistakes that prevent your strategy from achieving success. Some common search engine marketing mistakes you should avoid include:
- Not doing enough keyword research
While using brand keywords and creating unique search terms is great, they do not guarantee higher search rankings. Instead of capturing unique keywords, companies should leverage keyword planning and analytics tools to identify search trends and find the right balance of high-volume and low-competition keywords.
- Optimizing only for Google
Since Google has the most extensive search marketing share, optimizing your website for Google makes sense. However, in doing so, you might neglect prospective clients present on other search engines like Bing, Yahoo!, or DuckDuckGo. To capture these audiences, it is vital to optimize your websites not only for Google but also for other search engines.
- Using generic ads that are not targeted
Just mentioning your brand name and asking them to buy your services is not enough to convince your target audience. Be specific with how you formulate your headlines so buyers can know what to expect at a glance. It is essential to understand the mentality and pain points of your audience. This enables you to personalize your advertisements to encourage people to click.
- Overlooking local SEO
Overlooking local search terms and keywords could mean your business remains hidden in plain sight. Run highly targeted ads in the region where your business and its branches are located. Include precise long-tail search terms and voice search keywords to capture your local audience.
- Keep it simple
New customers are unlikely to understand technical terms and industry jargon. When placing product ads on search pages, be sure to provide brand and product details in a simple and concise manner. This ensures your client gets what they are looking for, improves click-through rates, and boosts engagement rates.
Wrapping Up
Search marketing is a powerful tool for increasing visibility and awareness. Using SEO and PPC effectively increases the traffic online channels get organically or paid. They are easy to monitor using analytics tools and incorporate into your business strategy.
To get the best out of a search marketing strategy, businesses must plan ahead, keeping their audience’s pain points in mind. With keyword planning, responsive design, paid ads, and on-site SEO techniques, companies can expand their online reach and boost engagement.
Do you want to leverage search marketing to take your business to the next level? The Smarketers is here at your rescue! Connect with our SEO, paid digital, and content marketing experts today and experience the power of inbound marketing for your business.
