5 Ways SEM Can Increase Your Business Leads

Although search engine marketing (SEM) has been around for almost 13 years, businesses typically struggle to use it when generating business leads. If you don’t know how SEM works, it can almost seem like magic. We have created this guide to provide a brief overview of how SEM can make a visible positive impact.

1. Improving Your Awareness of User Intents

Organic advertisements displayed on various search engines may account for more than 81% of all online purchases. This means that your potential customers typically use their preferred search platform to look for items satisfying both their immediate and long-term needs. The search terms used by your customers are a great way to judge their preferences. For instance, if the majority of the clients search for a “programmable dishwasher”, you could ask your marketers to re-write the content on your website to reflect this.

2. Highlighting Potential Marketing Partners

For a long time, Google has been the king of search engines. While it’s still true today, more and more people are using the search engines integrated into other platforms, most notably Facebook or Amazon. Reviewing statistics on what key terms were the most popular for a given product category using a specific website could be a great generator of future leads. If your clients favour Facebook, it would be logical to focus on content marketing and electronic word-of-mouth to increase brand awareness and create a strong lead database.

3. Gaining Knowledge of Your Competitors

A good way of gaining leads is addressing the gaps not yet covered by your rivals. After all, if you’re the only one selling something, consumer interest is going to skyrocket. There exist online tools such as SpyFu that allow for viewing keyword statistics and trends for specific businesses. A certain restaurant might specialise in vegan offerings which would be reflected in their search statistics. You can use this information to optimise your own website and improve the visibility of your outlet’s vegan foods, driving leads and increasing brand equity.

4. Directing Consumers’ Attention

Ever noticed that Google and other platforms offer panels with more information when you search for specific people, businesses or locations? These are known as owned media platforms. As you have complete control over the information appearing in these data snippets, you have a powerful tool of increasing leads. As an illustration, mentioning your awards or providing a link to Google Reviews for your business would inform your potential clients of your values within the first 2 minutes of the search process.

5. Automating Lead Generation

One other benefit of SEM is allowing your marketers to pursue innovative time-intensive campaigns. SEM does not require daily interventions. By optimising your website and increasing visibility, you are making sure that your lead generation statistics are stable. Nonetheless, there exists a risk of missing important developments in search technology. The recent rise of voice search, for instance, meant that text keywords have lost their relevance. While SEM is automation, you are going to need to keep your finger on the pulse of the search engine industry.

Keeping track of your users’ intents can be a nightmare. Luckily, SEM is one of those frameworks that exist to simplify things. Its focus on meaningful search terms and customers’ behaviours means that SEM is essential for generating leads. Keep the above benefits in mind and you’ll become an SEM expert in no time!