6 Common SEM Blunders That Could Be Hurting Your Ranking
Updated on: 22 September 2023
Whether you’re a newbie or a veteran when it comes to digital marketing, it is important to be knowledgeable about search engine marketing (SEM). SEM is basically a digital marketing strategy to increase the visibility of a website in search engine results pages (SERPs). With SEM, businesses purchase targeted ad space at the top of SERPs. It is a different approach from search engine optimisation (SEO), which concentrates on optimising content for search engine algorithms so that it ranks high on the SERP.
SEM is one of the most effective ways to expand a business in an increasingly competitive market. With an increasing number of consumers searching and shopping for products online, more and more businesses are enticed to adopt SEM in Hong Kong to increase their reach. Although SEM is an incredible way to gain leads, drive traffic, and attract customers, an SEM campaign isn’t guaranteed to help you achieve your goals.
Just like SEO, you still need to work your way up for your SEM campaign to succeed. Above all, you need to be aware of the numerous errors organisations tend to make when it comes to SEM. These mistakes can hurt your website’s online ranking instead of helping your business grow.
Read on as we enumerate some of the most common SEM blunders you should avoid if you want your SEM campaign to succeed.
1. Not Optimising Your Website
The reason behind setting up paid ads is to obtain more clicks and drive more traffic to your website. However, problems may arise when businesses focus too much on their ads that they forget to optimise their websites. When implementing an SEM campaign, you must continue to design your website to improve its performance. This will help enhance the user experience of all potential customers who visit your site.
Different factors, such as site navigation, site speed, and aesthetic visuals, can influence people’s impressions of your website and your company. For this reason, you must keep your site up-to-date as much as possible by always putting up high-quality content and providing a smooth interface that allows users to navigate your site easily.
2. Doing SEO and SEM Separately
It is a major (yet common) mistake not to perform your SEM campaigns together with your SEO strategies. Although these are different approaches to digital marketing, working on both SEM and SEO simultaneously will help you reach your goals more efficiently. On the contrary, if you’re only carrying out SEM campaigns for the instant volume, you’ll likely lose out on the long-term traffic that SEO services in Hong Kong can attract.
Combining SEM and SEO helps you meet your long-term and short-term marketing objectives and reach more potential customers to build your brand awareness. If you’re concerned about the cost, there’s not much reason to worry since you’ll likely spend less on SEM over time once your SEO starts working. So, be sure to implement an SEO strategy for your site while doing SEM.
3. Skipping Negative Keywords
While negative keywords sound bad, especially for those new to digital marketing, they’re not as bad as you might think. In reality, using negative keywords on your SEM campaign can help you gain more leads, drive more traffic to your website, and attract more customers. Basically, negative keywords are a type of keyword that prevents your ad from being triggered by a particular word or phrase. They’re essentially the opposite of regular keywords.
The purpose of using negative keywords is to enable you to exclude search terms from your campaigns and concentrate only on the keywords that are crucial to your customers. For instance, if you sell coffee, and the search terms that your target customers use are “coffee mixer” or “how to make coffee,” the negative keywords you must add in your SEM campaign are “mixer” (not “coffee mixer”) and “how to make” (not “how to make brewed coffee”). Otherwise, fewer people will be able to see your SEM campaign.
4. Refusing to Use Ad Extensions
There are many reasons why Google is considered one of the best marketing tools. For one, you can use Google Ads to boost your SEM campaigns. Formerly known as Google AdWords, Google Ads allows you to improve your ads using ad extensions. Using the right extension for your SEM campaigns, you can reach your target audience without much hassle. Google’s support centre also teaches companies about how using ad extensions can boost SEM and the latest Google Ads trends to pay attention to.
5. Geo-Targeting All the Wrong Places
Any reputable SEM company in Hong Kong would be aware of how important precise geotargeting is to SEM. Make sure your SEM campaigns are geo-targeting only the regions where your goods and services are offered for them to be effective. For instance, Microsoft Ads sets the default country for new accounts to the United States and Canada. On the other hand, unless you narrow it down, Google Ads defaults to worldwide.
Make a point of only targeting audiences that your company can truly serve when creating advertisements. For example, if you solely deliver your goods in Asia, concentrate your marketing efforts there. If your company has physical sites, utilise geofencing to focus on the region around those facilities. Be realistic at all times, above everything! Radius targeting is useful, but you can only benefit from it if you use it properly.
6. Making a Bland Call-To-Action
A call-to-action (CTA) is basically what you use to encourage your website visitors to check out your SEM campaign. A simple yet powerful CTA is enough to help you gain a significant number of leads. Without an effective CTA, your paid ads will likely lose a substantial portion of their value. Here are some examples of a good CTA:
For generic purposes: “See More,” “Learn More,” “Find Out,” “Start,” “Click Here,” “Read On,” “Continue,” and “Check It Out.”
For eCommerce campaigns: “Shop,” “Buy,” “Order,” “Save,” “Reserve,” “Add to Cart,” and “View More.”
To develop an effective CTA, concentrate on creating content for your audience and offering them something that would entice them. For example, you could include “learn more” in your meta description to encourage your readers to click on your SEM campaign. Just ensure that you use the least obvious approach as much as possible. Otherwise, you might discourage your readers from clicking on your campaign.
Conclusion
When done correctly, SEM can bring many benefits to your business, such as boosting your leads, increasing your website’s search visibility, and turning it into a magnet for potential customers. However, to enjoy these benefits, you must ensure that your SEM campaigns are effective and free from common blunders. The success of your SEM campaigns depends on your hands. If you know how to avoid the common SEM mistakes, the rest of your digital marketing will also be a success.
If you need expert assistance to optimise your SEM campaigns, Impossible Marketing is here to help! We are a reputable digital marketing agency in Hong Kong offering cost-effective and extensive SEM and SEO services to help you expand your business and reach your goals. Aside from this, we provide many other trusted services, such as lead generation, social media marketing, and social media management. With our expertise, we can take your digital marketing campaigns to the next level!