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Do you want to rank higher in the search engines? Sometimes, you need to pay to play. Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the practice of using paid advertisements on search engines – namely, Google – to attract more Internet traffic and customers.
But as a small retail business owner, you may not have the money or technical know-how to run expensive, complex paid ads. That’s why it’s important to maximize the budget you have and use tried and trusted strategies to get the best return on your ad spend.
In this guide, I share innovative and cost-effective strategies for the most profitable SEM campaigns, which drive better results for your small retail business.
Related: Smart Tips for Doing Search Engine Marketing Right
1. Use geo-specific targeting
The effectiveness of your SEM campaigns is largely dependent on targeting – whether your ads are reaching the right customers in the right place. Using geo-specific targeting allows you to focus your marketing efforts on the people most likely to convert into actual customers.
First, determine the areas you wish to target. These should be the places where your potential customers are most likely to be. This may include specific neighborhoods, cities or regions, whether they are near your physical store or in areas where you offer delivery service.
Next, log into your ad account and select the campaign you want to target geographically. For Google Ads, you can navigate to the “Settings” tab and view the “locations” section. This is where you can add specific areas to target, such as a city name, ZIP code or radius to your store address.
Use targeted areas as keywords in your ad copy. For example, if you’re targeting Denver, Colorado, you can use words like “Denver boutique” or “Downtown Denver Women’s Clothing” in your ad title or description. Monitor your ad statistics to check the number of clicks, calls or conversions generated by your targeted ads, and optimize your strategy accordingly.
2. Reduce ad usage by adding negative keywords
Negative keywords are used to prevent your ads from appearing in search results for keywords that are not relevant to your business. For example, if you own a small luxury home decor store, you might add “DIY” or “budget” as negative keywords to avoid attracting thrift shoppers or DIY-ers.
To identify negative keywords, review past campaigns to see if any irrelevant keywords are triggering your ads. In addition, discuss any generic terms that may not be relevant to your products or business.
Here’s how to add negative keywords to a Google ad campaign:
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Sign in to your Google Ads account.
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Select the campaign or ad group where you want to add negative keywords.
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In the menu on the left, click on “Keywords,” and select “Bad keywords.”
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Click the “+” button to add negative keywords. You can enter individual keywords or upload a list.
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Once you’ve added the negative keywords you want, click “Save” to apply them to your campaign.
Bad keywords filter traffic with low or unconverted intent. This leads to a higher conversion rate and better ROI.
Related: Struggling To Attract Local Customers To Your Business? Use These Digital Marketing Strategies to Increase Your Visibility.
3. Increase relevance and integration with ad groups
In SEM, clustering involves organizing your keywords, ads and landing pages into groups based on similar themes, products or services. This ensures that your ads are more relevant to the interests (ie, search queries) of your target audience. Bundling and bundling can reduce your ad costs, improve your Ad Quality and increase conversion rates.
Start by targeting closely related keywords. For example, if you own a clothing store, you might create separate collections for “formal wear,” “casual wear,” “summer wear,” etc. Each category should have specific keywords for that category.
Ad groups can be used to include groups of related keywords and target ads to them. Using the example above, you could create separate ad groups for Dresses, Skirts or Formal Wear, respectively. For each ad group, you will write customized ad copy that speaks specifically to the keywords in that group.
Aggregation ensures that your ads are matched to search queries that are most relevant to the right types of customers, based on their interests. Bundling increases ad relevance, which can lower your cost-per-click (CPC) and increase your ROI.
4. Increase online sales with Google Shopping ads
Google Shopping ads are unique ads that are created using product data directly from your Google Merchant Center account. They show your products directly in search results, leading to more online sales, as well as local traffic and in-store sales.
Here’s how to set up Google Shopping ads:
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Create a Google Merchant Center account. You will need to provide your business information, verify your website and set up tax and shipping information.
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Set up your product feed. This includes adding detailed information about your products, including titles, descriptions, prices, photos and availability.
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Upload your product feed to Google Merchant Center. You can do this manually or through automated methods such as scheduled downloads or an API.
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Link your Google Merchant Center and Google Ads accounts. In Google Merchant Center, navigate to the “Account Linking” section.
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Sign in to your Google Ads account and create a new campaign. Click the “+ New Campaign” button, select “Sales” or “Leads” as your campaign goal, and select “Shopping” as the campaign type.
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Create your ad groups, select the products you want to promote, and update your campaign settings (campaign name, budget, bidding strategy, keywords, target areas, etc.)
Shopping ads can appear in paid Google results, Google Play, Google Maps and the shopping tab, allowing you to find more customers in more places!
Related: How to Build Your Search Engine Tactics
With some skill and refinement, you can generate more business from your small business through SEM. Use these new strategies to improve visibility, improve ad usage and drive more targeted traffic.
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