In the digital marketing world that is growing and improving day by day, being at the forefront among search results has become the priority of brands. SEM, in other words, Search Engine Marketing, is a marketing method applied to bring your brand to the forefront among the search engine results in this highly competitive world.
Advertisements that appear at the top of organic search results by purchasing paid ads on the search engine results page (e.g. Google) are SEM ads. These advertisements are usually shown with the word "Ad" next to them on the search engine page.
With SEM targeting, you can get more effective results in Google searches with less cost and in a shorter time than SEO activities. Since SEO activities are longer-term works, their results also come out in a longer period than SEM.
How Does SEM Work?
SEM (Search Engine Marketing) is based on the auction system. The areas where ads can be displayed on the page are limited by search engines. Advertisers compete in the auction conducted for these spaces. The ads usually appear in more attractive areas at the top of the search results page.
You're probably wondering how this auction works. As in most auctions held in daily life, you first place a bid in an auction in the digital world. However, your bid is not the only determining factor. In an auction in the SEM world, your relevance score is highly important alongside your bid. This is a factor about how relevant your ad is to what is being searched and normally varies with a range of 1 point to 10. In search engines such as Google and Yandex, this is called quality score.
For example, of the two competing companies with the same advertisement bid prices, the one with the higher quality score appears higher on the search results page. As another example, let's say that company A bids 4 TL per click but gets a relevance score of 5 because their advertisement isn't very relevant; and company B gets a relevance score of 10 due to having a highly relevant advertisement and bids 3 TL per click. By calculating the auction scores of these two companies (bid price x relevance), we can figure out which one will appear higher. Company A will have an auction score of 20 and company B will have an auction score of 30. Thus, business B will appear higher on the search results page even if its bid is lower. The operating principle of SEM is shortly like this.
Another important feature of SEM is that the advertiser only pays if the advertisement is clicked. If users don't click on your ad, you don't pay. This is called pay per click. There is also a pay-per-view method. In the pay-per-view pricing method, the pricing is based on the unit price determined when your ad is displayed in the search results. You can decide between these two methods according to your strategy regarding the product you offer.
What is the Use of SEM?
SEM enables potential customers looking for words and phrases related to your company or brand to advertise in this area. These words and phrases are called keywords. For a successful SEM performance, the more relevant and unique keywords you determine for the product or service being marketed, the easier it will be for users to find your company; and accordingly, the traffic you will get on your site will increase.
