When your business absolutely, positively needs to be on Google and Bing, search engine marketing (SEM) is your best bet. Major search engines offer platforms such as Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising that allow you to bid on keywords (searches). Done right, this almost guarantees to move your business, products, or services to the top of search results, often above the free, organic results.
Unlike free listings that can be attained with SEO, these platforms come with a price. In most cases, advertisers pay each time a searcher clicks on their search ads.
In addition to search/text ads on Google.com and Bing.com results pages, advertisers can also use these platforms to run display, shopping, and video ads. Doing so allows them to reach up to 90% of internet users worldwide.
The average return on SEM ad spend is often cited as 2:1 (earning $2 for every $1 spent on advertising). This ratio varies widely by industry and campaign type. However, an even bigger factor might be the advertiser’s level of expertise with the ad platform. Many business owners attempt to build and manage their own pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns only to find that they’ve quickly spent thousands of dollars with little or nothing to show for their investment.
SEM is a powerful way to grow your business, but we highly recommend that businesses work with an expert. With so many ad platform settings, it is very easy to make costly mistakes that result in the majority of your ad spend being wasted. If your business needs to be on the first page of search results, we’d love to help.