Blue Larch LLC
Search Engine Marketing
Search Engine Marketing (or SEM) is the process of purchasing keywords in major search engines, typically bidding for placement on a 'per click' basis.
We typically recommend that our clients consider purchasing a lot of more obscure (but focussed) keyword combinations rather than a few more generic terms that are at a premium due to heavy competition.
It takes more thought but can be much more cost effective. The price per click this way is lower and your dollars go much further!
Some thoughts:
Its hard to make money from using SEM if your margins per sale/transaction are small. For example, selling t-shirts using keyword buys is challenging as the price of keywords is high and the price of t-shirts is low. If you buy keyword combinations like "Princeton NJ t-shirt" or Hillsborough NJ shirt" then your per click price point may be low enough to be cost effective.
If you provide larger ticket item goods or services where one good sale can make substantial money then SEM may well be worth some very serious consideration. A small number of conversions can quickly amount to serious money.
Put yourself in the shoes of whoever your customer might be and think about all the various keywords they might use to find you. Using geographic tags might be particularly helpful if your range is within specific towns or counties. Those who find you are then using those place names AND you aren't competing for clicks with people several states away (or even in other countries).
Set yourself a budget for how much you want to spend and stick to it.
Evaluate performance on a regular basis. You need to know your conversion rate or you won't know whether the paid for clicks are worth the cost to you. Discontinue if they aren't working, try something else.
Experiment, analyse, re-evaluate.
We can help, but usually as you know your customers/audience then you will better know what terms they might use to look for you. If not, then look at your current site's logs for search engine search terms for who already found you - that may be a clue where to focus your attention also.