The SEM Cheat - Sheet

Here at Digit9, we consider SEM as one of the most efficient methods to develop a business, whether big or small in an ever increasing competitive marketplace.

SEM may sound extremely complicated or fancy to you, however in layman’s terms it’s simply Search Engine Marketing. One of the most common misconceptions is that bigger the ad budget, bigger the reach online. But in reality its correct targeting that does the job for your brand’s positive growth trajectory. Unless you don’t know who exactly your target audience is and what they are searching for on Google, your brand will not resonate with customers.

Even though a larger marketing budget can surely be valuable, especially when targeting extremely competitive and common keywords such as management or dating, it’s far from a prerequisite for a hit with SEM. This is because all ads have to go through the ad auction process before appearing alongside the search results. 

We identify keywords (both long tail and common ones) that our client should bid on and state how much we are willing to pay per click to have the brand’s ads appear alongside results relating to those specific keywords. If Google determines that the keywords we bid on are relevant to someone’s search query, the ads are entered into the ad auction.

The ad auction victory depends on two crucial factors – maximum bid and quality score. The ad rank is then determined for placement of the ad. And there you go this is cheat sheet to SEM. If this peaks your curiosity, drop a comment here.