Your Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Agency
We are unlike a normal search engine marketing (SEM) agency, given that we do all our web development, web design, international SEO, PPC and social campaigns in-house. Send your SEM brief through to us today!
SEM or Search Engine Marketing involves promoting websites on search engine results pages. This is a balance of cultivated organic search ranking work (SEO) alongside managed paid campaigns (PPC).
If you want to learn about how our affordable SEO services combine with our PPC work to become an informed internet marketing strategy, then read on.
Paid Ads for SEM
Given that Google own near 75% of the global search marketing spend, we'll be looking here to begin with.
Google processes 1 billion searches a day. Each of those searches sees what is called a search engine results page (SERP).
Depending on the search, there may be between 0 and 7 ads on that page, along with 10 organic search results. The number of ads on the page typically show how competitive that particular search query is.
Your SEM Agency can help you to find the least competitive terms in your industry as they may yield the greatest return.
COMPETITIVE SERPS
On the most competitive SERP, 4 ads show above the 10 organic search results and 3 below. This can continue for a number of pages.
"investing in stocks" for example, is a very competitive search query, with 7 ads on the front page and second page, 6 on the third page (3 above and 3 below organic results) and then 3 on the fourth page (below organic results only).
Over 4 pages that results in a total of 40 organic search results (4*10) and 23 ads (7+7+6+3).
This means that for every 2 organic search results you see, you'll see at least one ad (for competitive terms).
CLICK THROUGH RATE (CTR), CONVERSION RATES AND BUDGET
The SEM agencies working for the companies who advertise on Google SERPs will study their click through and conversion rates for different wording on their adverts.
A good SEM agency will also work with you to identify the search queries you should aim your advertising spend at. They should also advise you that it is worth keeping in mind your budget, and an upper limit for spend. It is very easy to spend money on search engine marketing.
You need to make sure you're getting a return!
BRANDED VS UNBRANDED SEARCH MARKETING
Typically SEM agencies will run tests to find out whether it is worthwhile paying for ads when someone is searching for your brand. You will have a high organic rank for branded search queries anyway, so the people who click your ads might have come to your website without you paying for their click.
ORGANIC VS PAID SEARCH MARKETING
Organic rankings are a surefire way to get consistent high quality traffic to the right pages on your website. However, organic SEO doesn't come free, nor does it come quickly.
Organic SERP rankings are earned through DIY SEO or Professional SEO work, which involves tailoring your site to both people and search engines.
Over the long-term organic search marketing work will result in a higher return on your investment when compared to the pay per click approach.
ORGANIC SEO AND PAY PER CLICK COMBINED
There are some benefits to having a budget large enough to combine both methods of search marketing.
PPC focuses the mind and forces you to optimise your content. The cost of your clicks and the number of conversions you see from your ads will change as you tweak your PPC landing pages.
Once you have optimised the content, you can expand upon it and share the link to that page with your audience via email and sites like reddit, facebook, instagram, linkedin and pinterest.
You can then whittle down your pay per click spend as your page climbs the organic rankings!
STEP UP YOUR SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING
If you're looking to engage with an SEM Agency to discuss how to take your digital marketing to the next level, do take advantage of our unprofitable habit of giving free advice.
We can charge on deliverables or by the hour.
Internet Marketing Services
We offer various internet marketing services under the simple headings of organic internet marketing and paid internet marketing. Which you go for depends on what you can afford, and how much time you can put into your business marketing strategy.
We offer various internet marketing services under the simple headings of organic internet marketing and paid internet marketing. Which you go for depends on what you can afford, and how much time you can put into the marketing strategy.
Organic internet marketing services
Organic internet marketing involves building a brand and establishing yourself within a community who value your product and your views.
You can also use organic internet marketing to establish high ranking on Google and Bing search results pages. With over 3.5billion searches being made every single day, ranking highly for some of the popular searches will result in a lot of traffic!
Below are some of the organic internet marketing services we can offer at 3B Digital.
Paid internet marketing services
Paid internet marketing involves spending cash to bring traffic to your website. These visitors typically land on a special landing page which has been optimised for conversions (sales). It's important to make sure that you have an internet marketing strategy in place before embarking on a paid ad campaign online.
Below are some of the paid internet marketing services we can offer:
Social media advertising (using Facebook's lookalike audience feature)
Page optimisation & conversion optimisation
We also offer a guide on how to drive traffic to your website, which we'd recommend you look at.
Internet Marketing Strategies
Deciding on the right internet marketing strategy for your company can be challenging given all the information out there on the subject. We have been answering this very question since we started building websites in 1998, as a result - we hope this page helps you.
Deciding on the right internet marketing strategy for your company can be challenging given all the information out there on the subject. Google returns 3.1m results for such a search.
Given this paradox of choice, how do you go about determining the right strategy for you? We have been answering this very question since we started building websites in 1998, as a result - we hope the below helps you.
The internet is just a platform -> marketing is for people
The individual is the person who sees your brand, reads your content, forms a relationship with and ultimately buys from you. Listen to anything by UK Advertising Legend Dave Trott and enjoy a refreshing take on how marketing must not lose sight of the individual, and your product.
Forget the widgets and the platforms for a moment, they are simply a means to an end. The 'end' in this case being a potential customer learning about you and your product.
Questions to answer when formulating an internet marketing strategy
Write down answers to the following questions:
When someone first interacts with your company, what will they see?
Will this explain your product, your service, and your uniqueness?
Have you tested to see if this explanation can be improved upon?
Try using a tool like usertesting.com to get rapid answers to this!Do you understand your potential customer?
If not - do some market research! The long interview process outlined in chapter 2 of the New Business Road Test can help here. The chapter is entitled "How to learn what you don’t know you don’t know"Do you understand your current customers?
Do you know where they spend their time? Facebook? Twitter? Snapchat? Linkedin? Pinterest? Their email inbox? Whatsapp? And so on... If you can't answer this question, you need to do some research. Phone your most valuable customers and ask them how they spend their time.
Putting together an agile internet marketing strategy
An agile marketing strategy lasts for 3 to 6 months, and is revisited and tweaked as new information is gathered on the performance of each element.
We typically include the following elements in an 3-month internet marketing strategy:
Review of website content and value proposition
Page speed optimisation on your website
General site audit (following best practice guidelines)
Review of conversion optimisation opportunities
SEO Audit and scope for improvements (i.e. what content is performing well, and what are the next best steps?)
Social strategy for web backlinks, audience building and direct engagement
Paid advertising once conversion optimisation has been carried out
Send us a brief and we can help you to interweave the above elements into a coherent marketing strategy.
Useful Online Marketing Tools
Though this online marketing tool list is by no means extensive, we have provided a list of some of our favourite tools here. All are useful in terms of tracking your online presence, building your social following, providing you with marketing/user insights, or driving traffic to your website.
Though this list is by no means extensive, we have provided a list of useful online marketing tools below. They could be useful in terms of tracking your online presence, building your social following, providing you with marketing/user insights, or driving traffic to your website.
A list of some of our favourite Online Marketing Tools
Convertkit
Everliker
Facebook Ads
Facebook Pages
Google Adwords
Google Analytics
Google My Business
Google Sheets and the Add-Ons and Power Tools which come with it which allow us to do web scraping, and some free SEO analysis
Google Webmaster Tools\
Hootsuite
Hubspot
Instagram
LinkedIn
Mailchimp
Mailgun
MetaSEOInspector Google Chrome Extension
Niche online communities
Optimizely
Pinterest
Reddit
Screaming frog
Scrutiny
Sendgrid
The Squarespace Blog and Analytics apps for iPhone and Android
Twitter
Visitorqueue
Zendesk's help centre
The real win is getting the above tools to talk to one another in order to provide maximum value to us and to our clients.
If you'd like to discuss integrating some online marketing tools with your sales pipeline, please contact us!