How to implement an SEM strategy in eCommerce

In this week's Planet blog we talk about how and why to use SEM strategy in your eCommerce to increase your brand visibility and traffic to your website, which means increased sales.

What is SEM?

SEM or Search Engine Marketing is a strategy that seeks to increase the visibility of a web site through a good positioning in search engines achieved in a paid way.

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One of the most popular tools to carry out this strategy is Google Ads, a tool that allows marketers to create ads to improve the visibility of websites on Google, through a pay-per-click (PPC) system. Although, we must keep in mind that there are other search engines and focusing exclusively on Google will limit our strategy.

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What's the difference between SEM and SEO?

The main difference between the two strategies is that SEM requires an investment, since visibility is paid and short-term. If you have a large budget and can make competent bids, you will be able to place yourself in the top positions immediately.

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In the case of SEO positioning, this is a medium or long term action, since this positioning is produced organically and is influenced, among others, by the number of clicks of users on the link, so that if users visit the link frequently, positions in search engines will increase.

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The purpose of the SEM strategy is similar to the use of SEO positioning, which we talked about previously in our blog article "How to improve SEO on Shopify" In both cases, it is intended to improve traffic to our website through increased visibility within Google, Bing or Yahoo! search engines, although, in this article we will focus on how the SEM strategy works mainly on Google.

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How to improve SEM for your eCommerce?

To optimize your budget and ensure that users who see your sponsored link are qualified, here are 3 tips to improve the SEM of your eCommerce.

1. Choose your keywords carefully

This will be the first step to achieve a good SEM strategy, since, as with SEO, we must make a list of keywords that are relevant to our eCommerce and how our target audience finds us.

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If we have a previous keyword analysis, which shows us which searches generate more conversions, it is advisable to include these words in our ads. This analysis can be obtained through free tools such as Google Analytics.

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Once the most appropriate keywords have been selected, we must analyze their relevance, cost, searches, etc. And set up ad campaigns according to the budget we have, increasing the bids for our main keywords.

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In this case, the best way is to limit the daily budget and perform reviews at least weekly in order to optimize the budget, stopping or reducing bids on those keywords that generate fewer impressions, clicks or conversions.

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In addition, you can include negative keywords to make your ads more precise, in case the ad match is open. For example, if you sell coats and your keyword is "coat" with an open match, you can add "rent coat" as a negative keyword.

2. Segment your audience

SEM campaigns allow a detailed segmentation, to direct the ads to potential customers, so knowing your target audience is a fundamental step to achieve the success of your campaign.

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Some parameters that will help you segment the audience of your campaigns are interests, gender, language, location, device they use, etc.

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3. Attractive landing pages

By clicking on your ad, users are redirected to a link of your choice, so an attractive landing page will make users want to continue browsing your website and buy your products.

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A good option is, if you have active promotions in your eCommerce, include them in your landing page. You can also add a banner with basic information about shipping, returns, etc. and of course, show first the products related to the ad that users have clicked on.

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If your product catalog is very large, a good idea to optimize your campaigns is to segment according to the product category, redirecting your users directly to this category, instead of to a generic link of your eCommerce.

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Now that you know some keys to start creating your SEM campaign, it's time to put these tips into practice. Don't forget to measure the results!