Search Engine Marketing is an incredibly effective way to boost your website’s traffic and improve business awareness, but what exactly does it involve? Essentially, Search Engine Marketing or SEM is made up of a combination of SEO and PPC strategies. This means you’ll be able to combine both organic and paid search techniques to get the best possible results. As the name suggests, search engine marketing will help you get the most out of Google and other search engines your audience may be using to look for products and services like yours.

However, understanding what search engine marketing is isn’t enough to reap results – you need to create a strategy and put it into practice. Whether you decide to partner with a search engine marketing consultancy or implement some techniques on your own, here are a few aspects of search engine marketing you should be aware of:

Keyword research

Whether you want to focus more on SEO or PPC, keyword research is going to be essential if you want to reach the right audience. Not only is it important to choose keywords that a lot of people are searching for, but you need to make sure that they’re relevant to your business. This will match your website to searchers who actually need your products and services. There are lots of tools you can use to conduct keyword research, such as Semrush, Ahrefs and Google Keyword Planner.

High-quality content

Content is key when building a search engine marketing strategy. For SEO, you’ll need to craft optimised web pages and blog posts that are rich in keywords while speaking directly to the user you want to reach. PPC, on the other hand, will require you to spend more time on short-form content. You will need to familiarise yourself with what makes a good meta title and description, as this is what will hook your audience and convince them to click.

Analytics and audits

Search engine marketing is constantly changing, which is why you’ll need to use analytics software to make sure your strategy is performing well. However, before beginning any new strategy, you should perform a comprehensive audit to determine which areas need the most work. This will help you to build a strategy that’s tailored to your business’s needs. Analytics give you insight into details like page rankings, keywords you’re ranking for, the amount of traffic your website gets and whether this traffic is converting into paying customers.

Patience

Search engine marketing isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme. You’ll need to give it time to really work its magic. It’s hard to say how quickly an SEO strategy can take effect, but for most businesses, it’s several months before you start seeing a difference. However, it may be possible to get certain pages to rank highly if the competition for your keywords isn’t particularly strong. Don’t feel disheartened if your blogs aren’t performing well yet, give it time and keep going.

Search engine marketing is multifaceted, so it’s important not to focus too heavily on any one area. Instead, try to balance your approach for a more well-rounded strategy.