It’s impossible to discuss paid search management without invoking the term search engine marketing, or SEM. There was a time when this term was a sort of catch-all, involving both paid search activities as well as organic SEO. Today, those two fields have diverged: SEO is very much its own thing, while paid search activities encompass the whole of SEM.
No matter what you want to call it, SEM, or paid search management, is a critical tool for developing online visibility—and ideally, it’s combined with SEO in an integrated marketing strategy. Today, we’re going to give an overview—detailing what paid search includes, and why it matters.
What’s Included in Paid Search?
Essentially any activity in which you’re paying for non-organic search engine placement falls under this banner. Here are just a few examples of what we’re talking about when we talk about paid search:
- Paid search ads
- PPC (pay-per-click) ads
- CPS (cost-per-click) ads
- CPM (cost-per-thousand-impressions) ads
Paid Search Platforms
If you’re new to the field, and none of these terms mean much to you, the best place to begin is by exploring Google AdWords—by most any measure the most popular paid search platform around. The second most popular, incidentally, is Bing Ads, which many marketers foolishly overlook. Note that there are a number of second-tier ad platforms available elsewhere, including on many social networks—with Facebook’s ad platform being an increasingly major player.
All of these platforms offer their own guides and tutorials, and we recommend spending some time with these resources to get a handle on how they work and what they can offer you.
Getting Started in Paid Search
No matter the platform you choose, what you’re doing in paid search is spending ad dollars to have your listings showcased in a particular, sponsored area. In a PPC setting, you’re paying for your ad every time it’s clicked; with CPC, you’re paying every time it’s displayed.
Google and the other search engines devote some prime online real estate to paid ads—and in fact, Google has increased this space in recent years, with more and more of the search engine results page being given to sponsored content. This provides an invaluable opportunity for exposure. It might also be mentioned that these paid ads can be cost-effective, and that they are highly targeted. You can choose to display your ads for certain search terms, and you can target by geography and other demographics—ensuring that you’re showing your ads to the consumers you’re actually trying to reach.
Digital Advertiser Offers Paid Search Expertise
Paid search is an invaluable tool, but not always an easy one to wrap your head around. It requires careful planning and ongoing management—and Digital Advertiser offers both.
We’re paid search experts, and we offer real results. We’d love to help you get a paid search initiative off the ground. Contact the Digital Advertiser team today to learn more about our paid search management.