Search Engine Marketing Strategies for your Business

Updated on: 02 September 2024

Search Engine Marketing Strategies for your Business

There are approximately 8.5 billion searches per day in Google.

What is Search Engine Marketing?

Search engine marketing is a form of digital marketing that enables website owners to increase their website visibility in google search using search engine optimisation and google ads.

Search engine marketing’s purpose is to

1. Increase brand awareness

2. Drive traffic to your website

3. Increase conversions

“Search engine marketing accelerates revenue growth.”

Hubspot in their state of marketing report 2024 listed websites/ blogs/ SEO as the channel with the highest ROI.

Content marketing institute in its 2024 survey, listed paid search, as the paid channel that produced the best results for B2B.

My Story

Before starting INNMCO (pronounced IN - EM - COH). I was a digital marketing strategist at NTT DATA for 10+ years.

When I started INNMCO in 2021, I was trying to inform prospective buyers about my services using an outbound marketing approach. I cold messaged a lot of people in my network. I quickly discovered that, I was talking to people who I thought needed my service but didn’t really need what I was selling.

I realised that I didn’t know all the people who needed my services. I was thinking, what if all the people who needed my services came to me instead. This is what is called inbound marketing. This means you need to be creating valuable content and experiences for buyers to help them at every stage of the buyer’s journey. The information that you provide needs to be in a format (e.g. blog, video etc..) that resonates with your buyer.

I used SEO and Google Ads as channels for distributing my content. I prototyped, tested and optimised my digital marketing campaigns over time. I used the learnings from my digital marketing campaigns to craft effective Search Engine Marketing (SEO and Google Ads) strategies for my business.

Here are a few SEO and Google Ads strategies to improve your content visibility in search and generate leads for your business:

SEO Strategies

1. Use the topic cluster model while creating content

Implement the topic cluster model to showcase your specialisation to your prospective buyers. When prospective buyers see useful content on our website, they reward you with clicks and conversions. A topic cluster model includes a pillar page and multiple cluster pages. A pillar page provides a broad view on a particular topic. Cluster pages cover associated topics.

As an example, one of our pillar page is ‘What is SEO?’. Our cluster pages for our pillar page includes associated topics such as - how to implement SEO?, what is SEO content writing?, what is the difference between SEO and paid search?

2. Create quality content that matches search intent

There are 4 main types of search intent. Your website needs to be found by buyers who have different types of search intent. While optimising your web pages, consider using keywords for the 4 types of search intent.

1. Navigational search intent. If a buyer is looking to navigate to a particular page. They have a navigational search intent.

2. Informational search intent - If the buyer is looking to learn more about a topic. They have an informational search intent.

3. Commercial search intent - If the buyer is looking to compare two services providers or solutions. They have a commercial search intent.

4. Transactional search intent - If the buyer is looking to schedule an appointment or a demo. They have a transactional search intent.

3. Create quality content with the buyer in mind.

Google uses the EEAT framework to assess the quality of content on your website. EEAT stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trustworthiness.

1. Experience - Google looks at content that demonstrates the creator's first hand experience on the subject matter. Write about topics where you have first hand experience in solving a particular problem.

2. Expertise - Expertise often overlaps with experience but they are not the same thing. Google looks at, whether the authors have the knowledge, qualifications and credentials to give reliable information. As an example provide a link to your BIO which showcases your credentials on the topics that you specialise in.

3. Authoritativeness - Google reviews the authoritativeness of the creator, the content and the website. Building authority on a topic that you specialise in, takes time. When your industry peers start referring to your articles or blog posts, you have started to establish authority in the areas that you specialise in.

4. Trustworthiness - Cite trustworthy sources while writing your articles. Evaluate and update your content on a regular basis to ensure it’s accurate, relevant and informative.

Google Ads Strategies

Google ads uses an advertising model called the pay per click model, where the advertisers pay for every click.

1. Embrace the sales lifecycle while creating Google Ads for your business.

Broadly speaking there are 3 parts to a sales funnel - top of the funnel (TOFU), middle of the funnel (MOFU) and bottom of the funnel (BOFU).

1. TOFU - The buyers are problem focused. They may have heard about your business but they don’t care about business as yet. Use generic keywords that are more problem focused to trigger your google search ads.
2. MOFU - The buyers recognise that their problem needs a solution. They have heard your business and they are slightly interested in what you have to say. Use keywords related to your product, service or industry.
3. BOFU - The buyers have acknowledged their problem, they have researched a solution and they are ready to purchase. Use branded and competitor keywords to trigger your google search ads.

2. Optimise your landing page to increase conversions

Optimising your landing page increases conversions. Conversions are one among the many important KPI’s for evaluating the success of your google ads search campaign. Optimise your landing page by improving the:

1. content of your landing page
2. layout of the landing page
3. placement of call to action i.e. what you want your buyers to do next after reading your content.

Conclusion

I used inbound marketing to drive traffic to my website and generate leads for my business. I prototyped, tested and optimised my digital marketing campaigns over time. I crafted effective SEO and Google Search Ads strategies to improve my content visibility in search and generate leads for my business.

I rest my case - “Search engine marketing accelerates revenue growth.”

Written by Anees Misbahudeen

Founder & Digital Marketing Director, INNMCO

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