Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the use of search engines to increase visibility and clicks to your website and online marketing platforms. Find out more in this guide to the fundamentals.
This resources page was used as a supplement to the Brainstation ‘SEO, Google Ads & Analytics’ course that Andrew taught from 2018-2020.
It is packed full of resources and information about SEO, Google Ads and analytics.
These resources are to be used in conjunction with the slides for Brainstation’s ‘Search Engine Marketing’ course.
However, they can be used on their own as a way to explore current SEM resources, and this is why I’ve now made them public.
The page will remain live and accessible for students even after the course has finished. The course is 30 hours long and contains five full units (days) of lessons. Each day has a different focus but covers SEO, Google Ads, and Analytics.
Final Project – create slide template to use/examples of good ones
SEM helps you match content to intent, which is shown by the user’s search terms.
Definition of Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
“Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the use of search engines to increase visibility and clicks to your website and online marketing platforms. SEM strategy has to consider all search engines that are used by your target audience, as well as all websites, platforms and advertising that rank high in search results for your target and industry keywords. SEM includes SEO, search advertising, as well as platforms like Wikipedia, Google My Business, review sites, and social media that appear in SERPs that affect your authority and reputation.”
A broader definition of Search Engine Marketing
The Importance of SEM
“93% of all online experiences begin with a search engine and 91.5% of all clicks take place on the first page of Google.”
Sources: Propecta and Reputation 911
Types of SEM
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search Ads (PPC / PPM)
Owned Media Platforms (Google My Business, Twitter and Facebook).
Third Party Reputation & Authority Sites (e.g. Wikipedia, online review sites e.g. Yelp, Yellow Pages, TripAdvisor for hotels)
The Difference Between SEO & PPC
SEO is akin to a long term healthy diet and balanced lifestyle whereas Google ads can provide a much needed boost for campaigns or time-sensitive promotions. SEO takes time, even with best practices. Google Ads (and PPC) can have more immediate results and so that’s why we recommend using both.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
If your goal is a healthy, engaged and sustainable website then SEO is the best way to go in order to build something long-term that doesn’t require a huge advertising budget to sustain.
SEO can be boiled down to 3 essential things:
Great Content – that serves a specific audience with info they need.
User Experience – that provides fast and secure webpages, especially on mobile.
Backlinks – from relevant industry & authoritative sites.
If you get 1 and 2 right, 3 should eventually follow but if you add some SEO wizardry and promote your site well, you can get better results, faster.
How does Google Work? Watch the video below for about a minute.
Keyword Research
See example slides below and notes to explain steps:
Confirm objectives of keyword research e.g. explore all parts of website/business or one specific area
Confirm target areas
Confirm main target keywords
Research historical data
Use website as input into Google Keyword Planner to find other keywords
Research competitor, branded and alternative keywords as well
“Build good content for the users and you’ll be fine”
Martin Splitt, Webmaster Trends Analyst, Google
Unit 2 – Advanced SE0
Learning Objectives
The outputs of this unit will be to come up with your own backlink promotional strategy for your website, as well as learning how to create SEO optimized content for your website.
The Importance of Links from Other Websites: Video on PageRank, Google’s Master Algorithm from 1998:
Watch this 5 minute section on Google’s PageRank algorithm taken from a full length documentary ‘The Secret Rules of Modern Living – Algorithms’
Find directories or listings for your area, industry and add your business e.g. in US: Express Update, Neustar, BBB
Do search for ‘add business to directory’ in Google and put your location in the search or try with industry e.g. variations might include ‘add business to directory Toronto’ or ‘add business to financial diretory’
Activity 3 – How to Write SEO Titles & Descriptions
Use Screaming Frog to capture current page SEO titles and descriptions
Put them into a spreadsheet
Use analysis from keyword research to rewrite the titles and descriptions for your most important SEO pages. Note: the strategy is to put your main keywords in the title and description while making the copy enticing to get people to click through from Google search results. Try not to use the same main target keywords on different pages otherwise they compete against one another. Your main SEO pages are the ones that you use as landing pages, your most popular pages and articles.
When you have done this, bulk update your website by adding the SEO titles and descriptions into each page. Note: how you do this is dependent on your CMS. Tip: For WordPress use the tools for bulk editing on the Yoast plugin.
Not all content works the same way on a website. Different pages have different goals and different potential to rank for SEO. Consider how these pages differ:
The most important thing for SEO is creating great content for your users. This means unique, informative, interesting content. This content can be created in different ways.
The video below outlines one intensive research-based approach to content creation from Rand Fishkin, co-founder of Moz.
Examples of Blog Articles That Drive Traffic
These posts didn’t do the 10x content approach i.e. it doesn’t have to be exhausting! You can sometimes just hit upon something very useful or that is trendy that people search for.
The outputs of this unit will be being able to set up and use Google Search Console, learn and apply formulas for Google ads bidding, and set up campaign in Google ads.
There is an alternative to schema or manual structured data in Google Search Console that you may be able to use:
Google Ads
93% of all online experiences begin with a search engine
There are 3 types of keywords:
Informational / Navigational / Transactional
Google Ads can be used to find and target the most important transactional keywords for your industry.
Google Ads Rebranding
65% of all paid search is done through Google
70%+ of Google revenue comes from ads
“A staggering $24.1 billion of Google’s $27.77 billion revenue for Q3 2018 was from advertising – roughly a 22% increase from $19.8 billion in Q3 2017.”
Investopedia
Due to the breadth of companies advertising through the network, entire businesses depend on AdSense as their primary source of income.
A staggering $24.1 billion of Google’s $27.77 billion revenue for Q3 2018 was from advertising – roughly a 22% increase from $19.8 billion in Q3 2017.
Sources of Info
by Ira Thomson, Director of Ads & Analytics at North Shore Digital1. Configuring keyword match type
Sticking with the default match type can blow your budget fast. The “broad” type will show your ad for very loosely related search terms where you pay dearly for irrelevant clicks.
2. Not measuring conversions
If Ad A has a 20% CTR that leads to a 1% ecommerce sale conversion rate & Ad B has a 10% CTR that leads to a 4% ecommerce sale conversion rate Ad B is the clear ROI winner (twice as many rales for the same budget!) but if you aren’t tying ads to conversions Ad A is what you’ll pay for.
3. Poor targeting
Not paying attention to which audience, location and demographic is converting can be hazardous to any campaign. Targeting too narrowly can also limit your options.
4. Set & forget
Setting up a campaign then not analyzing data is throwing away budget.
5. Not testing or experimenting
Fogg Behaviour Model – Behaviour Change
Focus on high motivation and easy to do.
2. Jobs to Be Done Framework
Jobs-to-be-Done Theory provides a framework for defining, categorizing, capturing, and organizing all your customers’ needs.
Moreover, when using this framework, a complete set of need statements can be captured in days — rather than months — and the statements themselves are valid for years — rather than quickly becoming obsolete.
Example: imagine you were selling a skateboard. What would you highlight? It’s wheels, what’s it made of? The precise dimensions of the materials? Or would you talk about the benefits? The freedom for you to get out and do tricks? How does what you sell make them better
Focus on the benefits not the specs.‘Know the rules in order to break them’ = best practice as a creative and effective marketer
Unit 5 – Google Analytics & Presentations
Learning Objectives
For the final unit, we will work on learning how to use Google Analytics to track important business and website metrics. It’s also the final unit so we’ll get to see presentations and case studies from the group.
North Shore Digital is an award-winning digital marketing agency based out of North Vancouver, BC. We are experts in lead generation, Google Ads, SEO, and ROI analytics for landscapers, home services, construction, health practices and private schools.
SEM helps you match content to intent, which is shown by the user’s search terms.
