Does your business need to hire a search engine marketing consultant?

The overarching goal of search engine marketing is to boost a website’s visibility in the results pages of search engines such as Google or Bing. If it doesn’t sound complicated yet, trust us – it is.

Search engine marketing (SEM) is an umbrella term that encompasses search engine optimisation (SEO) and paid advertising strategies. 

In the past, search engines used to be pretty simple. Ranking highly was often a case of using the right meta tags and sprinkling in a few of the most relevant keywords. But times have changed. Nowadays, search engines rely on complex trust-based algorithms when deciding which sites to rank, which means businesses have to employ the right strategies to ensure they remain in favour. 

SEO has played an important role in marketing for a while now, and it has evolved to include a range of practices aimed at improving a website’s usability. Add into the mix the fact that companies are now paying for spots on Google’s homepage and it’s easy to see why SEM is a complicated business that requires specialised skills and knowledge. 

For this reason, many companies struggle to succeed with search marketing and find themselves wasting valuable time and resources for lacklustre payoffs. 

Enter the SEM consultant.

What is a search engine marketing consultant?

An SEM consultant is a digital marketing professional who is hired to work with a business to improve their website’s SEO rankings, to develop and execute a PPC strategy or to provide advice and guidance to help the company build a high-ranking content strategy themselves. 

It all starts with an audit in which the consultant will use specialised tools to assess each page on your website to gain insight into what has already been done and what’s missing.

With that information, the SEO specialist can begin putting together a strategy for your business, taking into account your overall goals and which methods will be used to achieve the desired results from your campaigns. 

Along with SEO, any great search engine marketing service will also know how to implement successful pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns. This includes tasks like keyword research, audience targeting and performance optimisation. In this way, the SEM consultant can develop cohesive strategies to enhance business growth. 

What makes a good search engine marketing consultant is the ability to be flexible, adaptable and strategic in their approach.

What is an example of search engine marketing?

Google Ads (formerly known as Google AdWords) is the most popular platform for SEM. A Google Ad is an advert that appears at the top of the Google search results and encourages users to click, which will then direct them to your website, product listing or other business page. Other common examples include Bing Ads and Yahoo!. But SEM marketing doesn’t just involve search engine advertising, it also includes organic SEO which is about how well your website ranks.

What does a search engine marketing consultant do?

Over time, marketing has developed and expanded to include a range of different areas. 

Although not every business will need to engage with every one of these, it’s a good idea to do your research and ensure you’re not missing out on valuable opportunities to build brand awareness and grow your business. With that in mind, a search engine consultant can help you to identify focus areas and develop strategies and a roadmap towards success. 

Here’s an overview of the different areas a SEM consultant can help your business with.

Page optimisation

This involves ensuring that each page on your website is performing to the highest possible standard. If it sounds like a daunting task, that’s because it is. Undertaking page optimisation can take you weeks if you go it alone. 

Luckily, an SEM specialist knows a thing or two about organic SEO. They can help you to ensure content is laid out correctly, the right keywords are utilised, backlinks from high-authority websites are secured and the copy is easily readable. Additionally, they’ll be able to assess the overall usability of your website to ensure you aren’t putting off your customers before they get the chance to interact with your content.

Technical SEO

SEO consulting services focus on understanding how to analyse and carry out all technical side of things, such as page load speed and crawlability, which can save your marketing team plenty of time while guaranteeing your website is performing optimally.

Local SEO

If you have a website or brick and mortar store, then you’ll benefit from implementing a local SEO strategy to ensure your website appears in the search result pages when people are looking for things to buy in your local area. To get this right, the SEO consultant will help you with setting up and optimising a Google My Business profile, using the right keywords, securing backlinks and building NAP citations.

PPC advertising

Nowadays, PPC advertising is a must for businesses that want to remain competitive and boost their visibility online. But it’s not as simple as bidding in a search ad auction and not everyone has the expertise required to succeed with PPC. 

An SEM specialist can help you to plan your advertising strategy and monitor the results to ensure your PPC search ads are being seen by your target audience and achieving the desired results. They can also advise you about creating effective landing pages to direct users to when they click on the ad, where they’ll find all the information they need to take the next step.

Performance monitoring

A PPC consultant’s job isn’t finished when your campaign is live. They’ll stick with your business to measure results and track performance using vital analytics tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, SEMRush, keyword research software and more. With this information, they can feedback with regular reports detailing which results your campaigns are achieving and how they can be improved moving forward.

How can you create a Search Engine Marketing campaign?

To build a successful SEM campaign requires a lot of strategy and planning. If you don’t have the time or expertise to take on this task yourself, consider working with a freelance consultant or an agency that offers PPC and SEO services.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the specific steps involved in creating an SEM campaign: 

• Define your goals: Although the overarching goal of SEM is to increase the visibility of your website in the search page results, you should also think about more refined business objectives. For instance, do you want to increase your reach organically, improve traffic to your Google Shopping listings or succeed with PPC. 
• Assess the competition: Ultimately, you want to be in a better position than your competitors. Look at the paid ad landscape as well as how companies in your industry are using other marketing tools and strategies to improve their reach. 
• Choose your PPC platform: Just like social media, there are various PPC platforms to choose from. If you want to go down this route, you’ll need to assess which ones will hold the most value for your business. Google has the highest search volume, but it also comes with tougher competition. Bing is cheaper but doesn’t have the same traction. 
• Research keywords: Keyword research plays a vital role in any SEM campaign. Look for short and long-tail keywords and terms related to your business to ensure your website appears when customers conduct searches. 
• Set a budget: Although SEO is mostly free (it just takes a lot of work), PPC isn’t. You’ll need to set a limit to ensure you’re not overspending on paid search. 
• Align SEM goals with your content strategy: Keep SEO principles in mind during the content creation process. This will help you to achieve better rankings and therefore more traffic to your website and other relevant pages. 
• Keep testing: It’s important to remain vigilant with SEM. Monitor campaign performance and make adjustments where necessary. The landscape is always changing and so should the way you do things if you want to stay ahead of the curve. 

If all of this is giving you a headache, or you’re confused by any of the terminologies we’ve used, you may want to look into hiring an expert to develop and implement an SEM strategy for your business.

What are the main elements of an SEO campaign?

The main elements of any SEO campaign include finding keywords, publishing content and creating and securing backlinks from relevant websites in your niche or related to your business. But it’s also about monitoring results, as without this you’ll have no idea whether or not your strategy is working. An SEO expert or SEM specialist can help you to make the most of this to reach a wider audience and grow your business.

How will a search engine marketing consultant benefit you?

There are many ways an SEM consultant can benefit your business. First and foremost, they take the task off your hands, which frees up your time to put towards handling other pressing company-related tasks. 

So how else can an SEM consultant drive results for your business? Here are just a few key advantages:

• They have a deep understanding of SEO and PPC and know how to develop effective strategies that align with your business goals
• Successful SEM drives more visitors to your website and relevant landing pages, which translates into more sales. Moreover, this occurs on a local and global level, growing your customer base and increasing your overall reach. 
• An SEM consultant can help you to improve your reputation. High ranking websites are perceived as those which are trusted and relied upon by Google and other search engines, which is why 67.60% of all clicks on results go to the first five pages.

Working with a search marketing consultant can lead to improved conversion rates as they can enhance the quality of your website and each landing, product or service page. They’ll analyse your website’s overall performance to make sure users have the best possible experience, making them more likely to become paying customers.

Why would you need managed search engine marketing services?

The role of search marketing is essential for modern businesses. It’s not a question of whether or not you engage with it, it’s just a question of how. 

Modern businesses consist of various busy departments and teams, and SEM is a serious and time-consuming undertaking. For this reason, many companies are opting for a managed PPC and SEO service offered by a freelance consultant, a search engine marketing company or a digital marketing agency. This not only saves a huge amount of time and resources, it also guarantees that your SEM campaigns will achieve results. 

At Axonn, we provide managed SEM services for businesses across industries. Whether you want to implement an effective paid advertising strategy to boost sales of a specific line of products or you want to improve the overall SEO performance of your website, we can help.