In today’s digital era, having a strong online presence is crucial for business success. Search engine marketing (SEM) is a powerful tool to enhance visibility and attract potential customers. From keyword optimization to compelling ad copy and a seamless user experience, understanding the fundamentals of SEM can pave the way for a flourishing online presence and long-term success.
Here, Young Entrepreneur Council members explore practical and actionable strategies to help businesses enhance their search engine marketing game.
## Practical Strategies for Improving Search Engine Marketing
### 1. Use Data to Make a Plan
Having a data-backed SEO plan in place is key to gaining traction with your search engine marketing tools. Start making incremental changes and track your progress to see what is and isn’t working, making changes as needed. Don’t forget to leverage SEO tools to do a lot of the legwork. — Diana Goodwin, MarketBox
### 2. Invest in PPC Advertising and SEO
Investing in both pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and SEO simultaneously allows for targeted keyword bidding and immediate visibility, while also focusing on organic rankings. By combining both approaches, companies can maximize their online presence and increase the likelihood of attracting qualified traffic. — Sujay Pawar, CartFlows
### 3. Optimize Your Website for Mobile Devices
Companies can improve their search engine marketing efforts by optimizing their website for mobile devices. Studies show that over half of all global web traffic comes from mobile devices. Mobile optimization involves creating a responsive design that ensures your website is easily accessible and user-friendly across all devices. — Kristin Kimberly Marquet, Marquet Media, LLC
### 4. Add Geolocation to Your Keywords
One easy step people can take to improve their search engine marketing is to add geolocation to their keywords. This will target people in the immediate area and draw them to your business. Most people, when they search for a product or service, will automatically put the geolocation in their search anyway, as people don’t want to have to drive to another city. — Baruch Labunski, Rank Secure
### 5. Get to Know Your Audience
Do a deep dive into your audience and where they are searching. Look at competitors, engage in advanced keyword searches, use long-tail keywords, and use location targeting. You just need to know your audience first. — Matthew Capala, Alphametic
### 6. Make Sure Your Content is Relevant
Creating relevant content helps improve your search engine marketing efforts and increases your search engine visibility. Content relevance is one of the key factors considered by search engines in determining rankings for different pages. So, creating content around queries that best align with your niche will make it easier for you to climb the SERPs and get more organic traction. — Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms
### 7. Create Educational Content Around Your Keywords
One powerful strategy is to create educational content about the keywords you are targeting. This helps readers get information and can easily get picked by Google and backlinked by other websites. — Piyush Jain, Simpalm
### 8. Find and Use the Right Analytical Tools
The single best way to improve your search engine marketing efforts is to ensure you have the right analytical tools in place to measure, track, and quantify your efforts. Track, test, tweak, and repeat is the process for dramatically improved search engine marketing ROI. — Ben Landers, Blue Corona
### 9. Optimize Your Keyword Bidding Strategies
Optimize keyword bidding strategies by focusing on long-tail keywords that may have less competition but a more targeted and geo-specific audience. Leveraging automation in bidding can also adjust to market dynamics in real time, improving the ROI of your SEM campaigns. — Vikas Agrawal, Infobrandz
### 10. Use Schema Markup for Your Site
Schema markup is an excellent way to improve your search engine marketing efforts. It helps Google understand the purpose of your website, which could help you grow your search presence. You can manually add markup data or speed up the process with an SEO tool. — Daman Jeet Singh, FunnelKit
### 11. Leverage Social Media Sharing
By adding social sharing buttons to your website or blog, you make it easier for visitors to share your content on their social media profiles. Social signals are considered a ranking factor by search engines, and when your content is shared widely, it indicates relevance and popularity. — Abhijeet Kaldate, Astra WordPress Theme
### 12. Create an FAQs Section
Adding an FAQs section to the bottom of key parts of your website can help your brand get picked up by voice assistants, impacting your organic search traffic. — John Turner, SeedProd LLC
By implementing these practical strategies, businesses can enhance their search engine marketing efforts and improve their online visibility, ultimately attracting more potential customers.
