The Benefits of SEM for eCommerce

There is no doubt that SEM is crucial for any website. However, there are a few reasons why eCommerce websites specifically should pay close attention to their paid search strategy. We will discuss the benefits of SEM for eCommerce.

SEM for eCommerce

The following are just a few of the many benefits of using SEM for online stores:

Boosts Traffic for New Websites

If your eCommerce site just went live, waiting for SEO success to kick in may very well be a luxury you simply can’t afford. While it will require a specific amount of financial investment, spending a significant amount of resources on SEM makes more sense early on. This is even the case if it’s just to get your feet off the ground. As time goes on and your SEO improves, you will be able to reduce your paid search efforts. Therefore, you can balance your investments once your business’s organic visibility increases.

With a PPC model, you only pay when a user actually clicks on your ad (unless you’re using a cost-per-mille model). Even more, the users that do decide to click already show a certain amount of interest in your offer. This means more qualified traffic.

Test Content

Testing is essential for establishing a successful eCommerce site, but SEO can take months to yield results.

Conversely, paid search allows you to test your landing pages quickly. Then you can optimize the best performing pages to help them rank organically.

Play the Season Front

You may have created all of the necessary dedicated landing pages for seasons events such as Christmas, Mother’s Day and Black Friday; however, it is possible that the seasonality of these pages means that they receive very little SEO traffic.

Paid search allows you to use some of the search terms holiday shoppers are searching for to promote these pages at the right time. This helps to boost the amount of traffic your website receives during these crucial eCommerce periods.

Finalize Sales with Re-marketing

Utilizing remarketing lists (RLSA) paid search is a huge opportunity for eCommerce websites.

Specifically on mobile devices, customization is not only becoming a norm but an expectation from users. As an online retailer, you can take advantage of this and use data, to personalize ads according to the products and pages a user visited on your website. As a result, this will improve their online experience and increase the chances that they will finalize their purchase.

Appear at the Top of SERPs

One of the most obvious benefits of SEM for eCommerce in the form of PPC campaigns is to drive a significant volume of traffic by appearing at the top of Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Organic results are rapidly being pushed further down the screen.

Also, keep in mind that SEM and SEO can be complementary techniques. Appearing multiple times in Search Engine Results Pages greatly increases the likelihood that a user will click to your website. Therefore, even if you already rank organically, ranking in paid search results as well can give an extra boost to your image online.

Leverage Your Brand Name

Keeping customers from going to your competitors’ websites can be one of your smartest investments. Especially for big players where your brand name is associated with a product, it is essential to bid on your own brand and ensure that you appear at the top of the page. This remains true even if you rank number 1 in organic results because you may risk being pushed further and further down as Google increases the number of paid search results in SERPs.

This is especially true for newer businesses, where SEM can help to boost traffic and accelerate brand awareness. Investing more in SEM as a first step is ideal while your SEO efforts take shape. This means that you can later balance out your investments as necessary, once your organic visibility reaches your expectations.

 

These are just a few of the many benefits of SEM for eCommerce. Are you considering taking your business online? Contact Centennial Arts with the link below to start on your SEM strategy today!