Top 11 Benefits of Search Engine Marketing (SEM) You Must Know

Updated on: Sep 17, 2019

In this blog, we’re going to break down the benefits of search engine marketing and why it has emerged as an important practice in digital marketing. 

Search engine marketing also has some disadvantages to it which will be highlighted along with some countermeasures to safe-proof your SEM efforts. 

As per Data Reportal, 98% of the people use search engines to do their research before buying a product in comparison to only 49% of people using social media for it. 

And if you take your own habits into consideration, you will realize how we look for the silliest to the most important answers on Google.

Benefits of search engine marketing - Data reportal statistic

(Source: Data Reportal)

Search engine marketing, or SEM for short, has grown into a major element of a company’s marketing strategies today. It is recognized as a revolutionary way to target their audience using ads.

So if you’re not completely aware of what SEM is, the next section will help you know more in detail about SEM before you know how beneficial it is. 

What is Search Engine Marketing? 

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) refers to several revolutionized paid techniques and strategies that a business can employ to improve and increase the visibility of its website.

The purpose of using Search engine marketing is to generate more traffic by use of paid search services such as google ads. SEM is also famously known as a Pay-Per-click advertisement.

These ads could be found in any of the top 4 or bottom 3 search results in SERP. Paid ads are differentiated from organic results with the words “Ad” highlighted before the search result.

The best platform to implement search engine marketing is Google Ads. There are 5 major types of Google Ads namely:

  • Text Ads – These are the basic ads and look exactly like a regular organic search on Google except for the words “Ad” mentioned on the left side.Benefits of search engine marketing - types of google ads - text ad example
  • Image Ads – You can add an image or a banner on different websites that have partnered with Google.Benefits of search engine marketing - types of google ads - image ad example
  • Video Ads – Similar to image ads, you can add a video on different websites that have partnered with Google.Benefits of search engine marketing - types of google ads - video-ad-example
  • YouTube Ads – You can run ads on YouTube in between videos as well.
    Benefits of search engine marketing - types of google ads - youtube ads example
  • Shopping Ads – Here you can add images and links to various products. It is most beneficial for an ecommerce store.Benefits of search engine marketing - types of google ads - shopping ad example

These are the 5 main types of ads that you can run on 2 distinct networks, i.e, Search Network and Display Network. 

Ads that are shown on the search engine result page fall under the search network. You can show text and shopping ads here. 

Ads that are shown on the Google partnered websites fall under the display network. You can show text, image, and video ads here. 

Search engine marketing has undoubtedly revolutionized the way ads are targeted, allowing many businesses to gain more exposure and reach a larger audience.

Here’s are the benefits of search engine marketing: 

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Top 11 Benefits of Search Engine Marketing:

Following are the benefits of search engine marketing –

1. Highly Intent-Driven 

One of the major benefits of Search Engine Marketing is that your efforts are catered to a highly intent-driven audience. Your ads will not be shown to an audience who “may” be interested in your product or service like it happens in social media marketing. 

Instead, your ads are directly targeted to someone who is actively searching for your product type or service. Thus, the user is already intending to buy your product niche and if your ad shows up, needless to say, you’re almost there on your way to convert a potential customer. 

2. Quick and Easy to Manage 

With platforms like Google Ads, the process of managing your ads on search engines is made extremely easy. All the viable options are displayed in a user-friendly manner. You can simply run or stop your campaign at any time.

Specifying your budget and performance goals is also very easy. There are options to schedule your campaigns in case you are managing many campaigns at once. All you have to do is dedicate some time in the beginning to understand the platform in detail. Here’s an Online Google Ads course led by industry experts to break it down for you. 

3. Fast Results

To obtain business, any business must be visible to users online. Organically ranking high, on the other hand, is a time-consuming and exhausting effort for the long run.

The good news is that if you have a proper bid amount, a decent keyword quality score (i.e. good ad relevance), and a great landing page experience, you can rank at the top of paid results fairly immediately.

4. Boost Traffic 

If you bid for the right keywords and set an optimum budget, then your ads will be shown to an audience actively looking for your product/service type. Even if the consumer is in the research stage, your ad will be shown before the organic results.

Thus, this attracts relevant traffic to your website. Tools like Keyword Planner, Semrush, Spyfu, Wordstream, etc help you find out search queries coming in for your website, and thus you can target those. You can also check google trends for reports and data. This ensures high + relevant traffic.

5. Beat Competitors’ Search Queries 

One of the main reasons why SEM is preferred over SEO to beat your competitors on search engines is because you can directly target keywords related to your competitors and show up on those search queries. 

This way you are capturing the leads before they go to your competitors. Thorough research on your competitors’ keywords and the right budget will help you beat your competitors. 

No doubt SEO also has its own perks and if you wish to find out, you can read our blog on the benefits of search engine optimization. 

6. Negative Keywords Option 

Another popular benefits of search engine marketing is the option given by Google Ads is the “negative keywords” option. Here, you can mention the keywords that you don’t want your ads to be shown for. 

So in the cases where you might have some similar keywords to your preferred keywords and you don’t want the ads to divert there, you can simply add them under negative keywords. This helps you to be more precise in your campaign. 

7. Measure Your Ad Campaign

You can monitor the effectiveness of your advertisements. This allows you to assess how effective they are at attracting new customers. 

You can, for example, track the number of times people saw your ad, ie, impressions vs took an action after seeing your ad, such as clicking it, asking for directions, or dialing a phone number from it. 

This data is useful when it comes to optimizing your ad to meet your ultimate goal for that campaign. 

8. Complete Control On Your Spending

Monthly budgets can be closely reviewed and adjusted as needed. You can choose how much money you wish to spend on these advertisements. 

Depending on your budget analysis, you can adjust the ad spending at any given time. This ensures that your money is not being wasted and optimized to its fullest potential as per your will.

9. Increase Brand Awareness

As previously noted, Google search ads (PPC) allow advertisers to use their brand name in the headlines, description, display URL, and extension links of their ads. 

As a result, these sponsored search engine advertisements help to raise brand awareness, especially because they frequently appear at the top of Google search results.

10. Pay After Interaction

Unlike social media marketing, you’ll only have to pay if someone clicks on your ad after it’s online. This provides for unrestricted exposure because you are only liable to pay if someone takes action. 

If no one clicks or takes any action as a result of this, you will not be charged and even after that, awareness will be established. Thus, it’s one of the monetary benefits of search engine marketing which poses a win-win situation. 

11. Niche Targeting Geographically 

SEM allows you to target people depending on their geographic location. You can make advertising in a variety of languages and choose where they show; you can pick a country, a city, or even a specific region anywhere on the planet.

Here’s an example. McDonald’s has developed a new veggie burger and wants to promote it. The first thing they’ll do is conduct research to determine which country or region has the largest vegetable demand and consumption.

Apart from SEM, there are so many other digital marketing trends and skills such as email marketing, content marketing, etc that help businesses expand their reach and sales. 

These were the benefits of search engine marketing which have motivated companies all over to make use of it. 

Now, let’s have a look at the components of search engine marketing that makes this marketing segment successful.

Components of Search Engine Marketing

There are 3 major components of search engine marketing i.e., headline, display URL, and description. Let’s have a look in detail:

(a) Headline

Headline is the first text a user will notice when they see your ad. Headline stands out and contains the keyword that the user is looking for.

Headlines should be catchy enough to persuade users to click on the ad. Apart from this, it should highlight the USP and information that can help the users to differentiate you from other results appearing on SERP.

(b) Display URL

Display URL is the website address within the ad copy that will take the users to the destination page of the ad.

Apart from this, display URL also helps advertisers to track and analyze the ad performance on different metrics.

(c) Description

Description is the piece of text beneath the headlines and the URL that contains crucial information about the data on the page. It aims to elucidate more about the ad to let users to click and visit the ad.

Descriptions have a 90 character limit and advertisers should highlight the USP and CTA to improve CTRs.

Now that we know the components of search engine marketing, let’s understand the importance of search engine marketing. 

Importance of Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

With the phenomenal growth of digital marketing in the current era, more people have become aware of the importance of optimizing their websites to rank on the first page of the SERP. 

Where companies are using SEO to organically rank on the search engines, we believe it is not enough. The competition has risen tremendously which calls for SEM efforts.

Making use of pay-per-click (PPC) can be very beneficial for businesses that want immediate results and grow their online presence. 

Since PPC can be heavily customized, it allows you to target specific keywords to reach your audience, you can set the time of day, date, and frequency of your ads, geographic location, device used, and you can also conduct remarketing (targeting those individuals who have visited your site previously.

Take a look at Zomato, one of India’s top delivering foodservice providers. Zomato uses SEM extensively in their marketing tactics, which helped them acquire greater awareness. 

Zomato uses Google Ads to perform Search Ad Campaigns. It focuses on keywords linked to food, internet ordering, restaurant names, and much more. It is aimed at people who would like to have food delivered to them.

If you’re interested you can learn more about the search engine marketing strategies of Zomato which will help you give a better understanding.

Now that you know how important it is, here’s how you can become an SEM specialist. 

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How to become an SEM Specialist? 

After seeing the benefits of search engine marketing, there’s no secret that many want to pursue this line. To practice SEM, you need to know the one platform that is the best for it, Google Ads. And there is nothing better than learning it from industry experts and professionals who have been practicing it for years. 

This gives you an added benefit of learning from their successes and failures. Thus, join us for IIDE’s Online Google Ads Course which dives deep into the platform and walks you through every detail. 

Another option for all those looking for an all-around knowledge of digital marketing including SEM is our Online Digital Marketing Course in India. It is an intensive course with numerous trainers lined up for various skills. And it offers guaranteed placements too. 

But if you’re okay with starting as an executive and climbing up the ladder to become a specialist, this is a viable option. And if not, then we have something for all those looking to become an SEM specialist directly. 

Our 11-month MBA-Level Post Graduation in Digital Marketing trains students and working professionals thoroughly in digital as well as managerial skills. It further helps you train in the niche you’re good at, for example, SEM. 

At the end of the program, you will be eligible for IIDE’s placement cell which places alumni straight at the mid-senior managerial level, like an SEM specialist and many other digital marketing roles. 

Conclusion

There’s no doubt that search engine marketing can have a significant impact on businesses if used strategically. From increasing visibility and driving targeted traffic to boosting brand awareness and generating leads, SEM provides a powerful platform for reaching and engaging with potential customers at various stages of the buying journey.

The platform has evolved during the course of time and offers a wide range of services to advertisers. By using SEM tactics like PPC advertising, keyword optimization, and ad targeting, businesses can position themselves prominently in search engine results pages and connect with users actively searching for products or services like theirs.

We hope this blog has helped you gain insightful information about the benefits of search engine marketing. Let us know about your views in the comments section below. 

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Daksh Juneja

COO, Avignyata Inc. & Digital Marketing Trainer, IIDE

He is currently COO at Avignyata Inc. - Digital Marketing Agency and has worked with 1400+ clients from various industries. Few clients worked on Shoppers Stop, Inorbit Malls, Disney, TGIF, Nexus Malls......[Read full bio]

1 Comment

  1. Shamsher Khan

    Nice blog…! This will help to us and improve our knowledge. Thanks for sharing this benefits of SEM blog.

    Reply

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