Let’s do a quick search engine marketing exercise: Close your eyes and try to come up with the exact number of times you’ve Googled something today. Were you looking up the best lunch spots? Maybe you’re in the market for a new coffee pot and need some recommendations, or perhaps you were looking up best times of year to take a vacation.
When you open your eyes, ask yourself – were you able to come up with a number?
If so, bravo! If not, you’re not alone – Google processes over 40,000 search queries every second, meaning there are over 3.5 billion searches per day.
All this to say: having your website show up on the first search page is imperative. Luckily, here is where search engine marketing and search engine optimization come into play. Having a competitive and comprehensive search engine strategy is more important than ever in an increasingly digital world. So, how do you know what’s best for you?
First, let’s take a look at what Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are:
Search Engine Marketing is a form of online marketing used to gain traffic and visibility through paid advertising.
Search Engine Optimization means organically incorporating high-ranking keywords into a website to increase website traffic and visibility.
We often see clients lean two ways:
- They choose to stick with traditional advertising because they don’t see the value in digital marketing, or
- They put all their hopes into SEO without first defining how to use information that will be most relevant to their customers.
We understand the thought behind both strategies. But in reality, a balanced digital marketing plan is key to elevating your brand.
Traditional advertising is just that – traditional. Companies are moving away from old-school media and shifting into digital spaces – and it’s happening fast. Even traditional media, like print, radio, or television, are finding ways to incorporate technology. Do you get the daily newspaper, or do you read the news online? Do you channel surf on your portable radio, or do you subscribe to commercial-free streaming services? Moving forward in the future, all companies must ask themselves not what media your customers are consuming but how.
And while it’s important for every company to have digital marketing and pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, they’re not the end-all-be-all of getting ROI on your marketing.
All forms of advertising are a team effort – some methods work better than others, but the best results come from campaigns that use multiple marketing techniques.
When thinking about how you want to advertise online, it’s all about the end goal and tactics you use to get there. Are you looking to encourage people to call your company? Drive people to your brick-and-mortar store by displaying your location online? Maybe it’s increasing purchases by creating compelling ads that follow customers around the web? Whatever your tactics, make yourself visible.
Living in a digital age means going where your competitors are, or beating them to it. At Tailored Marketing, we’re huge fans of the latter. But in the end, successful digital marketing is all about crafting a strategy that finds your customers, and uses the most effective means to target them.
