Online Advertising Is Where It's At

This comic and caption, posted on Mashable.com a few weeks ago, is the perfect lead into our next blog. No longer are the days of radio commercials, print and TV ads – it’s too expensive! Online advertising is where it’s at.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is becoming very popular within the online marketing industry. Not only are SEM campaigns cost-effective and affordable, SEM campaigns make it easy to measure results, which in turn helps you to evaluate your ROI.

In most cases, the overall goal of a SEM campaign is to get people to your website in order to make a purchase or contact you. To run a successful SEM campaign there are a few things to keep in mind:

1. Define your goals and objectives before you get started
2. Adjust your website copy to reflect the copy in your ads
3. Write compelling ads and make good use of keywords/phrases
4. Create effective and appropriate landing pages
5. Be sure to install Google Analytics on your website

So your campaign is set-up and now it’s time to measure your ROI. A few ways to know if you’re obtaining a positive ROI are by viewing:

1. Increased traffic to your website
2. Increased time spent on your website by the average user
3. Increased number of new visitors to your website
4. Increased direct contact (via phone or email)

So why SEM?

90% of web traffic is generated through search engines – so use SEM and increase your website’s visibility in search engine result pages.