What Is Search Engine Marketing? Beginner’s Guide

In a satellite with 5.6 billion Google searches per day, the value of showing up successful Google’s hunt results can’t beryllium overstated.

That’s wherefore hunt motor selling is indispensable for your business. But what is it? And however bash you bash it? In this guide, you volition larn the following:

• What hunt motor selling is
• How to physique a hunt motor selling strategy
• SEO and PPC basics
• Examples of palmy hunt motor marketing

Search motor selling (SEM) is simply a benignant of integer selling that utilizes hunt engines to get much postulation to your website.

Many manufacture “experts” often usage SEM to speech astir pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. However, SEM encompasses paid selling and integrated search motor optimization (SEO).

Let’s clarify this a bit.

SEM vs. SEO

The main quality betwixt SEM and SEO is that the extremity of SEO is strictly to get integrated postulation from hunt engines similar Google, whereas the extremity of SEM is to usage some integrated and paid methods.

SEO falls nether the umbrella of SEM.

SEM vs. PPC

The main quality betwixt SEM and PPC advertising is that PPC is strictly astir purchasing advertisement placements connected a hunt engine, whereas SEM tin see SEO.

We judge it’s champion to person an all-encompassing SEM strategy that includes PPC ads and SEO truthful that you’re not leaving wealth connected the table.

But however bash you do that?

Building a cohesive SEM strategy involves determining which keywords to people with SEO, PPC, oregon both. Which strategy you usage depends connected a fewer things, which we’ll screen shortly.

So if you haven’t done keyword probe already, that’s your first step.

You tin larn however to bash that successful our broad keyword probe guide. But if you privation a speedy mode to find keywords, participate a fewer wide topics into a keyword probe instrumentality similar Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer and cheque the Matching terms report.

For example, if you person a tract astir fashion, you whitethorn participate wide topics similar “fashion,” “hoodies,” and “tshirts.”

Then you tin sift done the ideas for thing with decent hunt measurement that customers are apt to beryllium searching for.

Once you’ve got immoderate keywords, travel the determination histrion beneath to determine whether to people them with SEO, PPC, or both:

Let’s spell done this process successful much detail.

1. Are searchers looking to larn or buy?
2. Can you realistically fertile anytime soon?
3. Are the ads getting tons of clicks?

Question 1. Are searchers looking to larn or buy?

For this question, you’re analyzing a keyword’s hunt intent. You’re looking for 1 of 2 types of searches:

1. Informational
2. Transactional

To find which benignant of hunt a keyword is, analyse the SERP for informational vs. commercialized intent. In different words, are radical looking to larn thing oregon bargain something?

For example, let’s look astatine the keyword “fashionable sneakers.”

The SERP overview shows america that astir results are listicles with sneaker recommendations.

This tells america this keyword is chiefly informational. Searchers are looking to learn. 

In this case, your questioning ends present successful the determination histrion due to the fact that you cognize you should people the keyword with SEO.

However, if we look astatine the SERP for “hoodies,” each of the results are e‑commerce pages selling hoodies:

This tells maine this keyword is transactional. So searchers are looking to buy.

In this case, we request to inquire much questions to fig retired however to people the keyword.

Question 2. Can you realistically fertile anytime soon?

This is simply a question of keyword ranking difficulty.

If you tin perchance fertile organically for a keyword easily, you whitethorn privation to see SEO. If not, you volition request PPC (at slightest successful the abbreviated to mean term).

You tin get a unsmooth thought of however hard it whitethorn beryllium to fertile for a keyword with the Keyword Difficulty (KD) metric successful Keywords Explorer. This metric runs connected a standard from 0 to 100, with keywords scoring “0” being the easiest to rank for.

For example, if we plug the keyword “tshirt” into Keywords Explorer, we spot that its KD people is 74:

That signals that this keyword is apt tough to rank for.

We basal our KD people connected the fig of referring domains (linking websites) to the top-ranking pages. If you scroll down to the SERP overview, you’ll spot wherefore KD is truthful precocious for this keyword—all of the top-ranking pages person hundreds of referring domains.

However, KD lone gives you the rough difficulty of ranking for a keyword. And it tin sometimes beryllium misleading.

For example, the KD people for the keyword “black tshirt” is 1—which seems very easy.

But if you scroll down to the SERP overview, you’ll spot a archetypal leafage dominated by household brands similar Amazon, Target, Nordstrom, Zara, and Kohls.

This indicates that searchers are astir apt looking to bargain from well-known brands, truthful it’s going to beryllium beauteous pugnacious to fertile anytime soon if that’s not you.

The constituent present is that you shouldn’t trust wholly connected third-party metrics similar KD erstwhile deciding the ranking trouble of a keyword. Read our station connected determining ranking difficulty if you privation to learn more.

If you don’t deliberation you tin fertile anytime soon for your keyword, use PPC.

If you deliberation ranking successful the abbreviated to mean word is possible, use SEO.

However, adjacent if you tin rank, you whitethorn inactive privation to see utilizing PPC. To determine if this is close for you, you request to reply 1 much question.

Question 3. Are the ads getting tons of clicks?

Even if you’re capable to fertile for a keyword easily, precocious clicks going to ads awesome that you whitethorn privation to bash some PPC and SEO to monopolize the SERP and get much clicks.

You tin spot however galore clicks the keyword ads are getting successful Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer by hovering implicit the green, yellow, and orangish barroom successful the Volume box.

For the keyword “tshirt,” the paid ads get 8% of the clicks, and 2% of searches get clicks connected some the paid and integrated results. So astir 10% of searches person astatine slightest 1 ad click.

This seems low. However, announcement that 63% of searches effect successful nary clicks whatsoever. Only 37% get clicks. This means that astir a 4th of searches with clicks get advertisement clicks.

So, successful this case, utilizing PPC ads and SEO (if you tin rank) is astir apt the best bet.

Rinse and repetition this process for each of your keywords to find which strategy to usage for each. If you request much assistance deciding which strategy to use, cheque retired our SEO vs. PPC guide.

Now you should person a spreadsheet afloat of keywords, and you should cognize which ones you’re targeting with SEO, PPC, oregon some strategies.

Rather than overwhelming you with everything you request to cognize astir SEO and PPC, I’ll connection the basics of however each of these works and springiness you links to dive deeper into the concepts.

Basics of SEO

For your SEO keywords, you’ll request to commencement an SEO campaign.

This means creating caller contented for the keywords you don’t person contented for yet and optimizing aged contented for those you bash person contented for.

Essentially, SEO tin beryllium boiled down to 3 main activities:

1. On-page SEO (optimizing your content)
2. Link building (getting backlinks from different websites)
3. Technical SEO (optimizing your website’s codification and structure)

Follow the links to larn much astir however to bash these things. If you person nary thought wherever to start, notation to our beginner’s usher to SEO basics.

Basics of hunt motor PPC marketing

For your PPC keywords, you’ll request to cognize the basics of however Google ads work.

Running an advertisement boils down to:

• Choosing your advertisement benignant and goals for each keyword.
• Having strong advertisement copywriting.
• Picking the astir applicable keyword themes.
• Deciding connected a budget.
• Understanding the Google Ad auction.

First, create a escaped Google Ads account and familiarize yourself with the dashboard.

Then, watch this fantabulous video overview of however to get started with Google Ads.

How the Google Ad auction works

Google uses the ad auction system to find which ads should beryllium displayed each clip a hunt is done oregon each clip a tract with Google Ads is visited.

This is important to recognize due to the fact that it tin marque the quality betwixt moving palmy ads and wasting wealth connected ads that are excessively expensive.

There are 3 main factors that the advertisement auction uses to find which ads get shown connected a page:

1. Your bid – You tin acceptable the maximum bid magnitude you’re consenting to walk per click. A higher bid magnitude means a higher accidental of your advertisement being seen. But bid excessively high, and you whitethorn beryllium losing money—so trial this often.
2. The prime of your ads – Google Ads uses a Quality Score to find however applicable and utile your advertisement is to a hunt oregon webpage. The higher your people is connected a standard of 1–10, the much apt your advertisement volition beryllium shown. So effort to marque your advertisement arsenic high-quality and applicable to the people keyword(s) arsenic possible.
3. The expected interaction from your advertisement extensions and different advertisement formats – This is further accusation you tin adhd to your ad, specified arsenic your company’s telephone fig oregon links to circumstantial pages connected your site. Google estimates however these added extensions volition interaction your ad’s show and uses that estimation to find however often your advertisement is displayed.

The main takeaway present is that two-thirds of the factors that find however good your advertisement performs are specifically show metrics, not conscionable however overmuch you’re consenting to spend.

In different words: If you person a high-quality, applicable ad, you tin gain much for less.

Head to our guide to PPC basics for a much in-depth overview of however to bash PPC hunt ads.

Now that you recognize what SEM is and however to bash it, let’s look astatine a fewer examples of companies that person utilized the afloat scope of SEM to turn their business.

1. Ahrefs

As I mentioned before, Ahrefs gets astir 1 cardinal integrated visits to its tract per month.

We’ve spent thousands connected PPC advertising, and our blog has contented that ranks for astir each SEO-related keyword you tin think of.

Here are a fewer keywords we’ve been targeting with PPC campaigns, recovered utilizing our Paid keywords report successful Ahrefs’ Site Explorer. 

As acold arsenic SEO contented goes, immoderate of our astir fashionable high-ranking articles see the following:

• Affiliate Marketing for Beginners: What It Is + How to Succeed
• 10 Free Keyword Research Tools (That Aren’t Google Keyword Planner)
• The Top 100 Google Searches

I utilized the Top pages report successful Site Explorer to find retired which are our highest-performing pages.

2. Canva

Next up, we person Canva, my favourite graphic plan tool. It receives a whopping 70.3 cardinal integrated visits per month!

Canva is an fantabulous tract to look astatine due to the fact that it uses SEO connected galore commercialized and informational keywords. In fact, 1 of its champion keywords is “make escaped logos,” which gets 119,000 searches per period and leads to a free logo instauration tool it built.

If we look astatine its Paid keywords report, we tin spot it’s bidding connected implicit 900 keywords.

Take a browse done its blog to get immoderate ideas of however it approaches SEO and contented creation.

3. The Wandering RV

The Wandering RV is simply a integer steadfast for RV owners. It receives implicit 100,000 integrated visits per month.

It made a spot connected this database due to the fact that of its skillful usage of statistic pages to physique links. By ranking for keywords similar “how galore radical dice successful car accidents” and “RV manufacture statistics,” the 2 pages person received links from 500 referring domains.

These aren’t conscionable immoderate links. We’re talking astir precocious Domain Rating (DR) links from websites similar iHeartRadio, AOL, and Life Hacker.

While nexus gathering is 1 of the hardest parts of SEO, gathering statistic pages similar these is 1 of the easiest ways to get high-quality links with minimal manual outreach.

If you privation to larn this nexus gathering strategy, cheque retired our lawsuit study on however we ranked #1 for “SEO statistics” and acquired 36 links from 32 unsocial domains. It walks you done our nonstop process measurement by step.

Final thoughts

SEM is important for astir each businesses these days. If you person customers who usage Google, you should astir apt beryllium implementing immoderate signifier of SEM.

Hopefully, you present person a implicit SEM strategy to execute. If you’re inactive stumped, present are a fewer different articles to assistance you get the shot rolling:

• How Do Search Engines Work and Why Should You Care?
• SEO Basics: Beginner’s Guide to SEO Success
• PPC Marketing: Beginner’s Guide to Pay-Per-Click Ads