Paid Search Marketing: What Is It And How It Works

Stepping into the realm of Paid Search Marketing can be daunting at first but because it is so incredibly beneficial for businesses, it pays to include it in your digital marketing mix.

All you need is to get started with the right basics.

And, that’s exactly what we’ll equip you with through this guide.

If you’ve been asking yourself questions like “how do I get paid for search marketing?”or “is paid search the same as SEM?” keep reading as we uncover these concepts below.

What is difference between SEO and SEM?

SEM is not the same as SEO — and in fact, they function quite differently — but they help you to accomplish the same end result: Gaining traffic. Before we take you into the entirety of Paid Search Marketing, let’s discuss how SEO and SEM are different from each other.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is largely organic, but it requires a lot of work and the result could sometimes take days, months, and sometimes years. We say “largely” because in order to drive traffic through SEO, you must invest in content marketing. In fact, SEO is all about content marketing.

SEM, on the other hand, is a full-blown paid strategy. In this, you basically pay Google to get traffic. Now, you may be wondering “why should I pay Google when I can write my own content and drive my presence online through SEO?”

Consider this: PPC ads receive 65% of clicks, while organic searches receiving 33%. Your PPC ads get seen, clicked on, and acted upon much faster. When you combine PPC with organic SEO, your chances of success rise dramatically.

Why digital marketers help businesses push their services on Google is that it is the biggest player in digital marketing. Technically, Google is bigger than all the search engines combined.

What is the difference between organic and paid search?

Paid Search scales up your business as soon as you want. If you’re willing to spend more money, you’ll get more traffic. You can target any region across the country, even the world. With paid search, you can choose which hours you want your ads to be running. Visitors will join even the aggressive landing pages which focus on services, offers, & products.

With organic search the end results are better, you will receive more traffic in the course of time. The moment you stop with page advertising, it stops, with organic search or SEO the story is entirely different and it is free. The algorithm keeps changing and keeping up with the algorithm is tough.

If businesses have an omnichannel approach leveraging both organic and paid search marketing, they are much likely to succeed. This is the reason why businesses should leave out Paid Search Advertising if they have a strong organic presence. If you’re still wondering, ‘Is paid search worth it?’ The answer is yes!

Why does paid search work well?

Proximity plays a great role in targeting customers whether it is online or offline. Moreover, small businesses tend to target customers who are close to their physical location. Sometimes, experts tend to ignore that paid search is a robust way by which you can target to attain traffic among local areas. PPC enables the consumers to locate your business through mobile devices when they are on a hunt. This is where PPC gives you an upper hand.

How does search engine marketing work?

When you make a payment to a search engine, 70% of work is already done. Once you make the payment, you get a leap that further gets you a customer or a potential customer. When a potential customer visits your site and the nature of your business seems lucrative to them then rest is history. For instance, let’s pretend that you sell T-shirts and the average order is around 200 bucks and extends up to Rs.1000. People can easily pay for things. As businesses, all you have to do is pay Rs.5 a click, Rs.15 a click, Rs.20 a click and so on.

Once you start profiting from Paid Search Marketing, it’s an ongoing work. You’ll pour the extra-earned money into SEM again to get more traffic and make a profit. In simpler words, paid search marketing provides businesses with an opportunity to advertise among sponsored listings in partner websites, social media platforms or search engines. Businesses incorporating digital marketers often ask – “how can I improve my SEM strategy?” As it is very much important for businesses to incorporate SEM strategies, we’ve outlined the most-needed SEM practices for the people who want to know more about it. Read below:

While conducting Keyword Research, go local.
Make use of social sites and local search engines to put advertisements.
Smart Search Engine Marketing practitioners tend to ‘Capitalize’ during local holidays.
Never compete with the local team, they are indefinitely a huge asset.
There is less competition during the international search, hence marketers can ditch bidding the same keywords which are used in the US.
Make sure that the steps of conversion are easy when the visit is on the landing page.

So, Why pay-per-click is important?

PPC as online marketing methods powers businesses with websites to pay for strategically placed advertisements per click. The process is more about ‘buying visits to your websites rather than organically attracting them. The paid ads on any search engine, whether it is Google, Bing, Yahoo are placed on the top-most position in the search result. In addition to this, the organic ones are usually placed underneath the paid counterparts.

Other than search engines, paid ads can be found on Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Hence proving the claim that they are strategically placed on all types of websites across the whole of the internet.

Find out why PPC is important below:

It is extremely targeted – You can showcase your ads as per interests, location, gender, age, device-type among others.
You can make changes to the ads for the individuals who have already visited your website. PPC is great at retargeting too. It helps in converting people over time.
It is very much cost-effective. It provides a good return on investment.
It is easy to track paid advertisements.
It is fast, if you don’t get traffic in hours of placing ads then it will happen in days. Guaranteed!

How do I start a search engine marketing campaign?

Here’s how you can do it.

How do I start a search engine marketing campaign

1. Select your desired SEM Channel-

You’ve all the liberty to choose between Microsoft Advertising, Google Ads, eBay Advertising, Amazon Advertising as well as Pinterest Ads.

2. Have an estimated budget (Monthly)

You need to have a basic idea of how much you want to spend every month. If you’re doing this for the first time, then run a test budget as it will provide you with the advantage of changing the budget. With SEM it is very easy to increase, decrease as well as stop the advertisements any time you want to.

3. Your landing page must be set-up specifically for SEM traffic

Always set your landing pages where you’ll get your advertisement as well as SEM traffic.

4. Track results via conversion tracker

You must make sure that you’re setting up a conversion tracking to keeping tabs on the results. The popular SEM platforms are integrated with trackers that allow tracking up of keywords that generate conversion, the landing pages and advertisements are best for your growth. You can benefit significantly from the conversion traffic.

5. Opt for campaign targeting

In terms of SEM, the most targeted element is keywords. Make sure that the key phrases which people type on search engines that further makes your products & services visible to them.

6. Create Advertisements and launch a campaign

The advertisement must be based on targeting. The trick is to make the ads aligned with the keywords which you are targeting. Also, make sure that the ads are driving traffic to the relevant landing pages.

Want to grab and convert more qualified leads? Paid search marketing is your best friend! But remember that while with paid search, the idea is to optimise targets, keywords and ads, the key to winning with PPC is to always keep testing.