Businesses of all sizes are continuously learning the value of online marketing, particularly with regards to search engines. Today, online users are likely to end up on a website through a search result than by heading directly to it. According to a recent study, 81% of users come across their desired online destination using a search engine.
Search Engine Optimization is justifiably popular for its capacity to influence search engines and their algorithms that catalog websites. SEO can deem a web page the best based on the keywords or key phrases used.
For years, a solid SEO plan has been every company’s go-to online marketing strategy. But as marketers grow more proficient using this resource, search engines have progressively become more elaborate as well. As a result, a marketer can’t just optimize now and leave it at that.
In place of local SEO, Search Engine Marketing or SEM has steadily grown to be the best marketing strategy, as some experts have concluded. It provides more accountability since search engines provide in-depth details about the overall performance of the ads placed on the website. Businesses, local and multinational, are urged to use SEM instead of SEO for various reasons, such as:
1. SEM is more predictable.
SEM is solidly within a marketer’s control since he himself decides on the keywords and pays for the ads. On the other hand, SEO is not well suited for lead generation because it mainly improves the website’s position in organic results. This means it is unreliable. A marketer can work on SEO for months, and the website may still fail to tap the organic traffic it’s supposed to have. Search engines are constantly adjusting their algorithms to make sure that search results are not manipulated by experienced marketing experts. Ultimately, this makes SEO somewhat a cat-and-mouse game.
2. Leads from SEO are rarely clear-cut.
It’s hard to measure SEO as a lead-generation resource since it’s not possible to measure the precise number of leads actually originating from the SEO campaign. For instance, an online user visits a website and subscribes as a lead: how can the marketer tell if the user discovered his website directly from a search engine, or looked for the website after hearing about it from a friend? Also, the possibility the user was led to the website through a combination of both scenarios must be overlooked. In contrast, calculating the volume of leads a marketer gets from SEM is more direct to the point.
3. Ranking second or third is still good with SEM.
Search Engine Marketing is among the handful of marketing tactics where ranking second or third place is still as advantageous as placing first. For instance, a marketer posted an ad on Google. After a week, the ad regularly appears in search results in second or third place when the keywords he used are typed in. The truth is, online users often click on the second or third position ads as often as they view the first-position advertisement.
Essentially, an SEM campaign hinges on how well it’s composed. A marketer can easily tweak all SEM factors to match what the customer wants. In the end, this brings the company more control and additional options than what is presented with conventional SEO.