Keyword Research The Hoth: Keyword Planner Keyword Research Google Trends Keyword Research Keyword Generator Keyword Research Answer The Public Keyword Research UberSuggest Keyword Research KWFinder (Requires Free Account) Technical SEO ScreamingFrog Technical SEO Google Structure Data Technical SEO Siteliner Technical SEO CopyScape Technical SEO PageSpeed Insights Technical SEO Robots.TXT Generator Technical SEO ZadroWeb Technical SEO Hubspot Website Grader Technical SEO Website Penalty Indicator Technical SEO BrowSEO Technical SEO XML-Sitemaps Technical SEO Varvy Technical SEO / Link Building Broken Link Checker Link Building Moz Link Explorer Link Building Linkody Link Building Serpstat Link Building Ahrefs Backlink Checker Content Marketing CoSchedule Headline Analyzer Content Marketing Buzzsumo Content Marketing Social Animal Content Marketing AgoraPulse Social Media Marketing Buzzsumo Social Media Marketing Tweep Maps Social Media Marketing Hashtagify Mobile SEO/UX Mobile First Index Checker Mobile SEO/UX Google’s Mobile Friendly Checker Mobile SEO/UX UXCheck Mobile SEO/UX Responsive Design Checker Analytics SimilarWeb Analytics / General SEO & PPC SpyFu Analytics / General SEO & PPC SEMRush General SEO Moz Local SEO Checker General SEO SEO Analyzer WEEK 8: SEM & PAY-PER-CLICK Ms. Justina Logozzo DGM6550 - SEO Strategy & Implementation E-mail: j_logozzo@northeastern.edu SEO SEM Search Engine Marketing Search engine marketing (SEM) is related to SEO in that they both deal with digital marketing outreach on search engines like Google and Bing. However, SEO typically refers to internal, organic website optimization while search engine marketing is commonly known as advertising through a paid media budget. Essentially SEM is: SEM (Search Engine Marketing) is the process of gaining website traffic by purchasing ads on search engines. It Goes By A Lot Of Names • Paid search ads • Paid search advertising • PPC (pay-per-click) * • PPC (pay-per-call) – some ads, particularly those served to mobile search users, may be charged by the number of clicks that resulted in a direct call from a smartphone. • CPC (cost-per-click) * • CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions) * • Most search ads are sold on a CPC / PPC basis, but some advertising options may also be sold on a CPM basis. High Level Overview Advertisers bid on keywords that users of services such as Google and Bing might enter when looking for certain products or services, which gives the advertiser the opportunity for their ads to appear alongside results for those search queries. These ads, often known by the term pay-per-click ads, come in a variety of formats. Some are small, text-based ads, whereas others, such as product listing ads (PLAs, also known as Shopping ads) are more visual, product-based advertisements that allow consumers to see important information at-a-glance, such as price and reviews. Why is it used? Search engine marketing, or SEM, is one of the most effective ways to grow your business in an increasingly competitive marketplace. With millions of businesses out there all vying for the same eyeballs, it’s never been more important to advertise online, and search engine marketing is the most effective way to promote your products and grow your business. Why is it used? Search engine marketing’s greatest strength is that it offers advertisers the opportunity to put their ads in front of motivated customers who are ready to buy at the precise moment they’re ready to make a purchase. How is it different than SEO? Generally, "search engine marketing" refers to paid search marketing, a system where businesses pay Google to show their ads in the search results. Search engine optimization, or SEO, is different because businesses don't pay Google for traffic and clicks; rather, they earn a free spot in in the search results by having the most relevant content for a given keyword search. Piece of Advice It is important to note that you should never use the terms SEO and SEM interchangeably, because although they work hand in hand, they are not the same term. SEO= Organic Listings SEM= Paid Listings How are SEO and SEM Complementary? SEO and SEM both heavily rely on keywords to drive traffic to business websites and web pages. Though the marketing techniques used for each are different, they are both focused on traffic flows and how these relate to marketing activities. People will use search engines to search for something that they’re looking for, and they’ll be able to find it by the organic results (SEO) or by the paid results (SEM). If your website is on the newer side, you can prioritize your PPC campaign first as it can take a while for SEO rankings to become established, but don’t ignore your SEO during this process. Which Is Better? It depends Which Is Better? Both SEO and SEM should be fundamental parts of your online marketing strategy. SEO is a powerful way to drive evergreen traffic at the top of the funnel, while search engine advertisements are a highly cost-effective way to drive conversions at the bottom of the funnel. SEM Glossary • • • • • • • • • • • • • Quality Score Click Through Rate (CTR Bounce Rate Ad Landing Page Keywords Maximum Cost Per Click Negative Keywords Search Intent Ad Ranking Ad Auction Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) Ad Creative Ad Extensions SEM Glossary • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Quality Score Click Through Rate (CTR) Bounce Rate Ad Landing Page Keywords Maximum Cost Per Click Negative Keywords Search Intent Ad Ranking Ad Auction Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) Ad Creative Ad Extensions A/B Testing Keywords are Important! MUCH LIKE SEO, Keywords are the foundation of search engine marketing. As users enter keywords (as part of search queries) into search engines to find what they’re looking for, it should come as little surprise that keywords form the basis of search engine marketing as an advertising strategy. SEM Keyword Research Before you can choose which keywords to use in your search engine marketing campaigns, you need to conduct comprehensive research as part of your keyword management strategy. In addition to helping you find keywords you should be bidding on, thorough keyword research can also help you identify negative keywords – search terms that you should exclude from your campaigns. SEM Keyword Research Negative keywords aren’t just terms with negative connotations, but rather irrelevant terms that are highly unlikely to result in conversions. For example, if you sell ice cream, you might want to exclude the keyword “ice cream recipes”, as users searching for ice cream recipes are unlikely to be in the market for your product. This concept is known as search intent, or the likelihood that a prospect will complete a purchase or other desired action after searching for a given term. SEM Keyword Research Another crucial aspect of keywords that is essential for the success of a search engine marketing campaign is account structure. Logical keyword grouping and account structure can help you achieve higher click-through rates, lower costs-perclick, and generally stronger overall performance, and keyword research can help you think about how to best structure your account. So How Do We Win? One of the most enduring misconceptions about search engine marketing is that whomever has the largest advertising budget wins. Although a larger advertising budget can certainly be advantageous, especially when targeting highly competitive keywords, but it’s far from a requirement for success with search engine marketing. This is because all ads go through a process known as the ad auction before appearing alongside search results. Quality is Key Given that Google AdWords’ Quality Score comprises half of the ad rank formula, it is one of the most crucial metrics search engine marketers can focus on. High Quality Scores can help you achieve better ad position at lower costs, because Google favors ads that are highly relevant to user queries. Quality Score is arguably the most important metric in search engine marketing. Paid Search Methods Pay-Per-Click (PPC) With PPC, you pay a small amount of money every time someone clicks onto your ad. Then they will be directed to the webpage of your choice. Your ad will only show up for people who search for the terms that you choose (the keywords you picked). PPC encompasses search platforms and social media platforms. The biggest search platforms are Bing Ads, Yahoo Ads and Google AdWords. By far the biggest (and most effective) PPC platform is Google AdWords, which is currently undergoing a brand transformation to just “Google Ads.” Why Is PPC Great For Driving Sales? Find Motivated Buyers Easily Your ad will only show up for someone when they search for the keywords that you choose. That means if you choose the right keywords, you can place your ad right in front of motivated customers who are ready to buy now! • • • • • • Buy Coupon(s) Deal(s) Discount(s) Free shipping …then they are very likely ready to buy at that exact moment! The above words are just a few examples of high commercial intent words. Why Is PPC Great For Driving Sales? No Need To Wait For SEO To Kick In And finally, the other main benefit of PPC is that you can bring in new visitors and customers fast. It’s virtually instantaneous. SEO, on the other hand, works slower and is a longer term strategy. It can take months before your new page reaches page 1 on Google. And page 1 is the only page that matters to most users. Site authority also factors into organic (non-paid) search rankings, which can take a great deal of time to build up. But with PPC, you have the capability to just buy your way to the top. Paid Search Ads On major search platforms like Google, Bing, and Yahoo, paid ads are typically shown above and below organic search results. They include three main components — a headline, display URL, and description text — all of which convince users to click. Text ads can also include ad extensions to expand your ad with additional information. Paid Search Ads Headline: The ad headline is the first thing noticeable because it has the largest text so incorporating relevant keywords draws more attention from high-intent searchers. These can be up to 30 characters. Paid Search Ads Display URL: The display URL shows your website address in green, directly underneath the headline. It is comprised of the domain from your final URL and an optional subdomain and path fields to provide searchers more clarity where they’ll arrive once they click through. Display URLs each contain up to 35 characters. Paid Search Ads Description Text: Description text helps highlight the most important details about your product or service and why search users should click through. Google Ads and Bing Ads allow up to 90 characters of description text, while Yahoo allows up to 150 characters. Paid Search Ads Ad Extensions: Ad extensions effectively allow your ad take up more space in the results list. That is a big deal when you realize space is extremely limited. These add-ons enable digital advertisers to provide more information about their product or service — such as location, phone number, or additional deep links. Formats include location information and maps, click-to-call buttons, reviews, sitelink extensions, and more. Not only do they increase your ad’s visibility, but Google reports ads’ clickthrough-rate increases several percentage points, too. How To Run A SEM Campaign Know Your Target Audience In a survey by CMO Council, 43% of marketers said that personalization increased conversions, which goes with Autopilot’s findings that consumers are 4x more likely to respond to personalized offers. Data that will help you better personalize your offers includes: • • • • • • geographic location language devices they use day of week they’re active time of day they’re active what they want, what they’re looking for, and how they’re searching for it • detailed buyer personas How To Run A SEM Campaign Audience targeting • Demographics: Target your ads based on how well your products and services trend with users in certain locations, ages, genders, and device types. • Affinity: Advertisers with TV campaigns can extend a campaign online and reach an audience using Google Search or the Display Network. • In-market: Show ads to users who have been searching for products and services like yours. These users may be looking to make a purchase or have previously made a purchase and could still be interested enough to interact with your ads. • Custom intent: Choose words or phrases related to the people that are most likely to engage with your site and make purchases by using "custom intent audiences." In addition to keywords, custom intent audiences lets you add URLs for websites, apps, or YouTube content related to your audience's interests. • Similar audiences: Expand your audience by targeting users with interests related to the users in your remarketing lists. These users aren't searching for your products or services directly, but their related interests may lead them to interacting with your ads. • Remarketing: Target users that have already interacted with your ads, website, or app so that they'll see your ads more often. These users can be in any stage of conversion, as long as they've visited your site or clicked on your ad before. These users may even return to complete a purchase. How To Run A SEM Campaign Content targeting • Topics: Target one ad to multiple pages about certain topics at once. Topic targeting lets you reach a broad range of pages on the Display Network. Google Ads analyzes web content and considers factors such as text, language, link structure, and page structure. It then determines the central themes of each webpage and targets ads based on your topic selections. • Placement: Target websites on the Display Network that your customers visit. If you select this type of targeting, we'll only look at your chosen sites (managed placements) when searching for relevant sites. Unlike contextual targeting (automatic placements), placement targeting doesn't require keywords. A placement might be an entire website or a subset of a site. • Content keywords: Choose words that are relevant to your product or service to target users making searches using those same terms. You can tailor a set of keywords to manually reach certain demographics or meet specific goals. For instance, you can change your keywords to reflect seasonal interests or make the most of a sale. • Display expansion for search: Let Google Ads find users for you with a combination of automated bidding and smart targeting. Display expansion works for both Search and Display campaigns, targeting high-performance moments for the best results. How To Run A SEM Campaign Find The Right Keywords To find the right keywords for your business, first create a list of keywords. Think of every search term that a customer would use to try and find your product. This would also include branded keywords, which also have higher conversion rates. Then you’ll want to use Google Keyword Planner tool to validate your keywords. Take a look at the search volumes, suggested bids, and competition level. It will also show you keyword suggestions. How To Run A SEM Campaign Organize Your Account Structure Google and Bing use account structure and organization as a metric in determining the relevancy of your SEM campaign. This is very important for your QS and generally businesses don’t spend enough time on it. Without a well organized and structured account, you’ll see reduced results for your investment. Make sure it’s setup correctly from the getgo because it’s harder to organize later on. How To Run A SEM Campaign Understand Keyword Grouping All successful SEM campaigns have these 5 elements: • • • • • campaigns ad groups keywords text landing pages Keywords should be specific to the ad group it belongs to, even if the two campaigns are about similar products or services for your business. Ad text should also contain the keywords that are relevant to the ad group. This might take more effort to setup initially, but in the long run it’s worth being organized because it will improve your QS and ROI. Leaf blower Powerful leaf blower BRANDED Leaf blower Wide tooth rakes Gravel rake Best rake for leaves DeWalt Drill Best power drill Power drill for construction Best Circular Saw Hand Saw Simple Wireless hand saw How To Run A SEM Campaign Work On Your Ad Copy Unlike with SEO content, you want your SEM ad copy to be persuasive and promotional in nature. Yes, you can put anything you want for your ad, but the more closely it resembles your target audience the better. For example, SEMRush increased their CTR by 30% just by changing 1 letter in all their UK SEM campaigns. They paid respect to UK spelling traditions by replacing the American “Z” with the British “S” in verbs like “analyze” and “optimize.” Also make sure that you elaborate in your ad copy on what the user will get after clicking on your ad. Make this offer clear and irresistible. What about paid social media ads? Facebook Ads According to Social Media Examiner 84% of marketers use Facebook as a regular advertising platform. One of the main reasons is that according to a Social Media Today research an average user spends 35 minutes connected to Facebook every day. Why not use this time to reach out to your potential customers? • • • • • Link Click Ads – These help you promote external websites and send people to a specific landing page (e.g article, blog post etc.) You would need to design a banner ad, based on Facebook character limitations, with a headline, an ad copy text and a link description. Boosted Posts – With this type, you would get to promote Facebook posts from your page or boost your blog’s or website’s posts. Moreover, you can choose the canvas format which is more interactive and completely captures the attention of your audience. Photo Ads – These ads work well for showcasing new products or services. Show people using your product, rather than a simple photo of the product itself. Video Ads – Facebook video ad options range from short mobile video ads up to 240-minute promoted videos designed to be watched on desktop. With so many options, it’s critical to have solid goals and understand who your target market is and where your video will reach them. Stories Ads – The newest ads the come into play, photos display for six seconds, and videos can last up to 15 seconds.You can’t specifically select Facebook Stories ads on their own. They’re included as a possible placement when you select Automatic Placements when creating your ad. Stories only last for 24 hours, so this is a great format for in-the-moment marketing like limited time offers. Instagram Ads Since Instagram is owned by Facebook, all its advertising campaigns are being controlled by the same platform, meaning that they more of less utilize the same advertising practices. However, two unique Instagram advertising ways are: • • InstaStories Ads – Instagram Stories ads can use photos or videos up to 120 seconds long. These ads display in full-screen format between people’s stories. Instagram Influencer Marketing- Unlike any other type of digital advertising, Influencer Marketing can really boost your business if you find the right influencers for your niche. The concept is simple: you find the right influencers in your industry, you reach out to them and they post your content. In this way, your brand’s awareness passes to the hands of the really influential people in your market. The barrier most of the times falls into the cost of said campaigns. LinkedIn Ads B2B Marketing’s favorite advertising tool. “Buyers prefer LinkedIn as the top social network for sharing business-related content, with 84% sharing business content on LinkedIn” a report published on Curata says. It is a highly business-oriented social network which means that besides the traditional targeting options available on other channels, you can target your ads based on other relevant data such as job title, skills, company size, industry, LinkedIn groups etc. LinkedIn offers marketers three types of ads: • • • Sponsored Content – sponsored posts in your business LinkedIn page and other peoples’ newsfeed. Sponsored InMail – these ads allow you to send direct LinkedIn emails to your targeted audiences’ inboxes. Text ads – are ads placed across your targeted audience’s LinkedIn feeds. Twitter Ads With hundreds of millions of Tweets sent each day — and an ever-changing Twitter algorithm — it can be easy for your brand’s posts and Twitter marketing to get lost in the noise. That’s where Twitter ads come in. Twitter advertising is an opportunity for your brand to promote its products and reach new users who might be interested in what your brand offers. • Promoted Tweets – Promoted Tweets look a lot like regular Tweets. What’s different is that an advertiser is paying to display the content to people who are not already following that advertiser on Twitter. Like ordinary Tweets, they can be liked, retweeted and commented on. But they are labelled as an ad: they will always say “Promoted” in the lower left-hand corner. Promoted Tweets can also contain video and will autoplay in users’ timelines. If the video is less than 60 seconds, then the video loops. • Promoted Accounts – Instead of promoting just one Tweet, this type of Twitter ad allows you to promote your brand’s entire Twitter account. It targets users who don’t already follow your brand and can help grow your business’s Twitter following. Promoted Accounts are displayed in potential followers’ timelines. The ad will also show in the Who to Follow suggestions and in search results. • Promoted Trends – Twitter’s trending topics is a high-turnover list on Twitter’s right-hand side. This is a collection of the most popular topics and hashtags being used in real time. Users can interact with a Promoted Trend in the same way they’d interact with any other trending topic. What’s different is that the spot a brand purchases will display as ‘Promoted’ for targeted users. A Promoted Trend will also show as one of the first spots under the “Trends for you” section, both in the Explore tab and in the timeline.When users click on the Promoted Trend, they will see search results for that topic with a promoted Tweet from your brand at the top. Pinterest Ads Pinterest ads offer marketers the chance to earn awareness and consideration from Pinterest’s 250 million users early in their consumer journeys. And connecting early works: 98 percent of Pinners say they’ve tried new things they found on Pinterest, versus 71 percent on other social media platforms. • Promoted Pins – Promoted Pins appear in the home feed and search results just like a regular Pin except that they’re boosted and targeted to deliver way more reach. Other than the “Promoted” label on the Pin, they look and behave the way other Pins do. Users can Pin them to boards, share them, and comment on them. • Promoted Carousels – These multi-image ads can appear wherever Pins can, and they behave the same, except for the dots beneath that signal the swipe option. Each card in a Promoted Carousel ad can feature a different image, title, description, and landing page. This format is great if you have multiple products or multiple features to showcase because different images and selling points can speak to different Pinners. • Promoted Pin Videos – Promoted Video Pins are just like Promoted Pins except the static image is replaced with video. Pinterest videos autoplay as soon as they’re 50 percent in view. For greater accessibility, and because many viewers watch video with sound off, it’s important to produce video that’s not dependent on audio. YouTube Ads Brands advertise on YouTube because it’s the world’s second most popular website, drawing 2 billion logged-in visitors a month. If you’re deciding how to allocate your video ad budget, YouTube has the vast reach and powerful targeting capabilities that make it an undeniably valuable platform across the customer journey. • TrueView Ads – These ads automatically play before, during, or after other videos on YouTube. • • • • They can also appear in other places in Google’s display network, such as apps or games. Users get the option to skip your ad after five seconds. The recommended video length is generally 30 seconds or less. Non-skippable Ads – These are short ads that appear either at the start of a video or at the midpoint of a video at least 10 minutes long. The ads are a maximum 20 seconds long, and they can’t be skipped. Bumper Ads – These ads are also unskippable, but they’re a maximum of six seconds long. They appear at the end of YouTube videos. Discovery Ads – Discovery ads show up alongside organic search results. So if your video looks more relevant than the organic results, people can choose to watch it, instead. These include three lines of text along with a thumbnail. When interested people click on the ad, they’re sent through to your video page or YouTube channel. Non-Video Ads (Cheaper Ads) – There are display ads that appear on the right-hand sidebar, and include an image and text, alongside a CTA with a link to your website. And then there are the Invideo overlay ads which appear floating on top of video content from monetized YouTube channels. Due This Week: • Discussion Board • Initial Posts Due Tuesday, Nov 10th, at 11:59PM • 2 Response Posts Due Thursday, Nov 12th, at 11:59PM • SEM/ PPC Audit Assignment • Due Thursday, Nov 12th, at 11:59PM • What are they currently doing for paid? • If nothing, should they do paid and why? • If yes, show examples of the ads you found. • What keywords should they target for paid? • Competitor Analysis • Use SpyFu for assignment • GRAPHICS ARE NECESSARY • Submit as PDF 
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