Search Engine Marketing Guide
SEM (Search Engine Marketing) aims to rank your webpages as high as possible on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for certain keywords and phrases.
SEM is often used for (1) high-intent leads, (2) bottom-of-the-funnel capturing of leads when they may have heard about the business elsewhere, and (3) defending your own brand or IP.
High intent: someone searching for something very specific that they are looking to purchase
Bottom-of-the-Funnel: someone heard about the business from a friend or on an ad, and they turn to a search engine to try to find out more information.
Defense: making sure you’ve secured top spots for your name, business name, or IP.
SEM is comprised of two types of activities: paid and earned.
Paid SEM includes Google and Bing search ads, where you bid on certain keywords to rank higher in the search engines.
Earned SEM, generally referred to as SEO (Search Engine Optimization), is the process of earning a high ranking for certain keywords because of the content, relevance and authority of your webpage.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
SEO is particularly appealing because you can win a high spot for a term that you couldn’t otherwise pay for, and it’s something that can live on for a long period of time (as opposed to paid SEM, which only lives in the high rankings when it’s the highest bidder).
SEO is successful when the search engines know what your article or website is about and when they see certain signals that your webpage is the best answer to what the user is searching for.
This involves a mastery in three key areas: the technical skeleton, the content, and the authority of your webpages.
The Technical Skeleton
Search engines use “spiders” to crawl webpages and learn what they are about. There are certain technical best practices that set webpages up for success.
The Keyword is the intentional word or phrase that a user may be searching for.
May be generic (“clothes”), specific (“women’s leather jacket”), aspirational (“comfortable leather jacket”) or even brand or recall-specific (“leather jacket Princess Kate wore”)
Can be brainstormed using tools like https://neilpatel.com/ubersuggest/
The Meta Title Tag is the clickable title that shows up in SERPs, the webpage’s tab, and on social media when the webpage is shared.
Should include the keyword, ideally towards the beginning
Should be unique between pages
Should be < 55 characters long
Headers are the pieces of HTML code that allow you to make certain words stand out on your page. These are ultimately the content’s titles.
Tell both Google and readers what the content is about.
Each page should have one H1 (the main header). This should include the keyword and tell what the article is about. These should be unique per page. If the webpage were a textbook, this would be the title.
Each page can also have H2s, which are smaller headlines. These are most helpful for a reader’s experience. Use H2s sparingly, for a section of 200+ words of text. If the webpage were a textbook, these would be the chapter titles.
The URL Slug is the unique and editable page title that comes after the / in your website, ie. www.website.com/slug.
Should contain the keyword
Should be descriptive & concise
Can omit function words like a, the, with...
The Meta Description is the description underneath the title on SERPs that gives more context about the article and ultimately convinces a reader to click your article.
Generates user clicks
Should be between 50-150 characters in length
Includes the keyword
Should not include non alphanumeric characters (like quotation marks)
Internal Links point to other pages on your website. These add authority & relevance to the article, help users navigate your webpage, and lead to new page discovery.
Website Navigation is the structure of your links and how the different pages are connected within your website. This should be organized in a way that is best for the user and that groups pages together by categories. Internal links can then be used to connect categories.
The Content
Ultimately, webpages should be written to best answer a reader’s needs. The goal is to get readers to click and then to spend time on your webpage; this tells the search engines that this is a webpage that should be ranked highly. Below are a few best practices to consider when developing webpage content:
Use the principle, “They ask; you answer.” Think about what your reader is wanting to find out, and do your best to answer that directly and fully.
Become familiar with competing articles’ content, and make sure the user intent or the question it’s answering is different than the other piece.
Use tables, ordered and numbered lists (ie. “The Top 8 Reasons…”) and images when possible. When using images or videos, remember that search engines can’t “read” images. Therefore, use alt-tags with the keywords to describe the content.
Use short paragraphs and H2s to break up the article and to create a better user experience.
Be sure to address the keyword and intent of the search in the first few paragraphs to signal to the reader that this article will answer their question.
Don’t duplicate content. If an article is posted on your website, do not post the same article on a different website.
Avoid “keyword stuffing”, where keywords are said over and over in an article, creating a negative reader experience.
The Authority
Search engines rely on off-site sources (those other than your website) to tell them that your webpage deserves to be ranked highly. This is considered by some to be the biggest factor in successful SEO. Authority is generally earned through backlinks.
Backlinks are when websites other than your own domain link to your webpage. They may be talking about you or your business directly, or they may be hyperlinking a word and linking to one of your webpages for more context.
Not all backlinks are created equal. Those with relevance (ie Popsugar or Huffington Post) or authority (ie Forbes or a .gov site) are more important to search engines than those from lesser-known websites.
Earning reputable backlinks often takes some creativity and can come from guest posts, news articles, business listings, press releases, and partnering with other businesses and influencers.
However, note that certain backlinks are designated as “nofollow” links, such as blog comments and social media posts. Search engines do not count these. You can also be penalized for “link schemes”, the practice of getting inks solely for the sake of SEO (vs. reader value).
Social media shares and paid SEM can also increase the authority of a webpage, as web traffic increases the authority of a webpage.
Additional Resources
If you have a Squarespace website, this link shares additional tips on implementing SEO best practices. This link shares similar tips for Wordpress websites. And finally, this link breaks SEO down for Shopify stores.
This article breaks down best practices for website navigation.
Neil Patel offers tons of free online SEO training, and his triggered email series sends super helpful quick tips.
Tips & Best Practices
Once you feel that the technical and content components of your website are ready, make sure that your webpage is indexed with Google. This lets them know that you exist! To do this, sign up for an account with https://search.google.com/search-console/about. Then, enter the domain and click URL Inspection. Click to “Request Indexing” if the page has not yet been indexed.
To see if your webpages have been indexed already, simply write “site:” before your web address in your Google search bar.
We then suggest sharing the webpage (especially if it’s an article) on your own channels, such as social media and email, which you work to gain backlinks.
You can track SEO efficacy using Google Search Console and clicking the Performance tab.
Paid SEM
Paid SEM (also referred to as Paid Search, Pay-Per-Click, or PPC advertising) is a type of advertising where businesses pay a fee for each time that a user clicks on an ad from a paid search engine.
Paid search advertising involves placing PPC ads on search engines like Google (along with Bing and newer Search platforms like Amazon or the App store). With paid search ads, businesses bid on keywords for an ad placement to appear as a promoted ad on the search engine results page (SERP).
When search engine users search for relevant keywords related to the business, the PPC ad will appear at the top of the page in their search query, above the organic/earned SEO listings.
Paid Search tends to live lower in the sales/business funnel since these consumers are actively raising their hand (via typing a keyword in a search engine) that relates to your business, offering or service. Those who click are generally considered “high intent”.
The auction is the process of deciding which ad shows for any given query search. Search engines utilize a specific algorithm (separate from the SEO spider crawlers) to determine which advertiser’s ad shows for any given auction.
Paid Search ads are robust and require not only proper set up but also on-going optimizations. Successful Paid Search ads involve several components which contribute to when your paid ad will show on the SERP: keywords, ad copy, extensions, keyword bids and quality score.
The keyword is a word or phrase that PPC advertisers use to target and display their ads in the sponsored SERP.
These keywords generally fall into 3 categories:
Branded: words or phrases utilizing your business name
Generic: words or phrases relating to your industry or offering
Competitive:your direct competitor business names
Here’s an example for Nike:
Branded: Nike running shoes, Nike air max
Generic: Running shoes, red basketball shoes
Competitor: Adidas running shoes, Under Armor tennis shoes
Your keywords should transcend across all branded, generic and competitor terms to cast the widest, most qualified net to attract quality traffic.
The Ad Copy is generally considered the second and third lines of an ad displayed on a SERP. This copy tells about your business or offering and should remain consistent with what is on your landing page to create a cohesive and seamless user experience from a search engine to your site.
One particularly great feature of Paid Search is that you ONLY pay when someone clicks on your ad. This means that if your ad shows and the user doesn’t click, you were still able to show an ad and make a brand impression without having to pay.
Extensions are additional incentives that increase the likelihood that users will click your ads. Advertisers can include business addresses, phone numbers, additional site links, promotions, or specific product information as extensions.
The use of these extensions are free of charge to use as the advertiser; the more you use, the better.
It is best practice to make your ads as robust as possible for two main reasons. First, this allows you to give as much info to the searcher as possible. And second, the larger and more robust your ad, the more your ad pushes competition down the SERP.
The Keyword Bid is the maximum amount you are willing to pay for a search keyword click.
Although this is the maximum you are willing to pay, the search engines will only charge you $0.01 more than the next highest bid should your ad win the auction.
Choosing keyword bids can be a manual or automated process. If automated, the engines allow you to decide how you want to bid and will automatically fluctuate your bids for your desired outcomes.
Because user behavior (including search behavior) is constantly changing, it is important to monitor and optimize your bids to ensure your ad is showing for keywords which are driving desired actions from your consumer, while taking yourself out of auctions which aren’t netting with positive desired outcomes from the click.
The Quality Score is a complex and partially hidden formula used by search engines to decide whether or not to show a particular ad.
The quality score is arguably the single most important metric when it comes to a search engine’s algorithm.
A quality score is given at the keyword level and is determined by several factors: your bid, historical performance, website details, etc.
Because search engines are still a business and rely on repeat users, they want to create the best and most relevant user experience possible. Therefore, the algorithm prioritizes ads that are the most relevant to the search. The more relevant your ad and website is to the keyword, the higher your quality score.
A quality score also impacts the amount you pay for a search ad click. Search engines offer a “discount” to those with high quality score, while they “tax” those keywords with a lower quality score.
Should your keyword have an extremely low quality score (a search engine does not deem your ad relevant to search keyword), there is a possibility your ad would never show, despite how much you’d be willing to pay for a bid.
Your ads might not show all the time if...
you exhaust your budget by noon every day. Your ads will turn off until the next day when your daily budget replenishes.
not enough people are searching for that keyword and therefore an auction is not needed.
your business isn’t relevant. If the search engine deems your business not to be relevant to the keyword (despite your bid), the engine will not show the ad.
searcher behavior doesn’t warrant the ad. Search engines know a ton about their audience, therefore the engine will sometimes choose to not show your ad if they don’t think the searcher would be interested or if the searcher doesn’t tend to click on paid ads.
Tips & Best Practices
Paid Search and SEO work best together. Users vary on whether they click on Paid or Organic ads, therefore, it is best to have both working in tandem. The saying goes Paid + Organic is like saying 1+1=3.
Paid Search works best for businesses that either have awareness tactics in place (Facebook ads or commercials, for instance) or those that have a familiar offering or service. Paid Search is a responsive medium, therefore people have to be searching for related keywords for your ad to show.
Because Paid Search is lower in the funnel, it is best to optimize your campaigns to a certain action like purchase, sign up for newsletter, add to cart, etc. This will help you uncover what keywords are driving ROI.