Online marketing success is dependent upon your visibility in search engines. Blog articles allow you to embed highly-searched, low competition keywords on your website that attract very specific target markets. Optimizing your website for organic page rank in Google, Bing and Yahoo! is a highly important part of the development of a website. With daily changes in Google's algorithm, proper search engine optimization has become imperative if you want your business to attract new prospects who search for your services online. In the last year or so, many companies who saw their page rank fall dramatically turned to SEM, Search Engine Marketing, to maintain their former level of online lead generation. Google Adwords is the most common solution, but throwing money at Google won't solve the problem. PPC must be used in conjunction with a properly structured website; otherwise, you'll overpay, and results will be poor. 

Unfortunately, SEO and SEM are not easy to master. Sometimes a "long tail" single keyword phrase, worded just a little differently, can make all the difference between ranking and invisibility. This attention to detail is why many small business owners look to professionals to manage their search engine marketing.

Your Company Name Comes Up First in Local Search Engines 

One of the advantages of hiring a professional to drive traffic to your website is that it gives you a competitive edge over those who feel they need to do it themselves. When dealing locally, search engine marketing for small business owners is critical, especially if the industry that you’re in is a competitive one. Statistically, three out of four small business owners bootstrap their websites until they begin to generate sufficient revenue from their line of work. Using MOZ Local will help ensure that your company name, description and contact information is the same on practically all of the places you can be seen online. Consistency is an important first step towards being found in local search.

Search Engine Marketing for Small Business Owners 

‘Look before you leap’ originally applied to a horseman. Knowing what is on the other side of the fence will save you from a hazard.  Search engine marketing professionals use tools like WordStream to identify the very best keywords, build the proper ad structure and analyze the most effective SEM approaches for designers, architects, and contractors and apply them to your Google Adwords and Facebook campaigns before setting upon an advertising course. Many small business owners destroy their search engine rank by relying upon poorly crafted PPC campaigns. Hiring a professional or using WordStream to get the job done bypasses the need to do your research, saving you time, and minimizing the risk of throwing capital into an advertising campaign that will not succeed. 

If it were enough to throw keywords onto your homepage, search results would not be of any value. Google's algorithm is designed to do one thing; ensure that search results are providing the best possible information. Continual benchmarking strategies are used to figure out what combination of keywords and advertisement copy works, and what doesn’t. Benchmarking ensures the continued success of your advertising campaigns. Moreover, updating your website for keyword optimization (as well as photo and video optimization) as you continue to add blog articles and web pages increases your chance for success. 

Since being found online is contingent upon both outbound marketing and inbound marketing strategies, landing pages allow you to measure advertising results and inform you of better or worse results when changes are made. 

Ad Management and Optimization 

SEM agencies create advertisements that speak to your audience demographic and target the right consumers at the optimal time. Since advertising works best when tested, search engine marketing always works best with tracking software like Hatchbuck on your website. It will help you determine what ads are working best, the platforms (Google, YouTube, Bing, Yahoo!) on which ads should be released, and when to feature particular advertisements to generate the most traffic for your website.

In a nutshell, we do not recommend using Google Adwords unless you have a minimal $1,000/month AdWords budget and have a minimum of 100 pages of keyword rich pages on your website. It should be noted here that this does not include the cost of writing advertisements, researching keywords and maintaining the system. Budget another $500 plus the $2,000 +/- cost of a monitoring system like WordStream. Considering the cost of $10,400 for two blog articles per week for a year, we suggest blogging. Blog articles are evergreen content that continues to generate leads for years to come, unlike advertising that stops the moment you stop paying for them.

About Michael Conway

I'm the owner and strategist at Means-of-Production. My firm builds Squarespace websites, Houzz profiles, and content marketing and advertising solutions for architects, interior designers, design-build contractors and landscape design firms. Our all-in-one marketing tactics attract the right clients with exceptional architectural photography and brand messaging that sets you apart from the competition.