SEA: Getting Started with Paid Ads on Search Engines
Start your first SEA campaign with confidence: learn how to use Google Ads, target keywords, optimize performance, and avoid common mistakes.
Hello,
When we have been working in a field for several years, with the advancement of technology, new terms appear overnight and you suddenly wonder, why has everyone been talking about the sea for the past two days? Yes, that’s how I discovered the term SEA for Search Engine Advertising; Google placements now had an official name.
And now, a search with the word paid search immediately brings you an ad from the Google Ads platform, inviting us to sell more using their system. Let’s find out why in this article and the benefits of correctly using advertising placements in search tools and avoid being overtaken by the wave.
In this report:
Learn the fundamentals of SEA to quickly boost your online visibility through search engines.
Discover how to build, target, and optimize Google Ads campaigns for better ROI.
Avoid common mistakes and start your first paid campaign with confidence and clarity.
MusicScore: Bobby Darin - Beyond the Sea. A good dancer too, don’t you think?
Listen to the MusicScores complete list on YouTube! Enjoy the Music At Work!
Paid referencing is intended to be an advertising service prioritizing website content in relevant search results.
SEA Quickly Generates Quality Visitors
When studying website statistics, there is always a percentage of visitors who come from search tools on all media, whether computer, tablet or mobile. These people found us by searching for our product/service, or from the location of nearby services, etc.
Advertising placement in search tools is an interesting possibility for companies that occupy a place in e-commerce, that has a store with product display or online promotional videos with a good reach.
Examples of Effective SEA Campaigns
A local business running ads with keywords like “service + city” to attract nearby customers.
A company testing a new product using a low-budget campaign to measure interest.
A professional promoting a webinar or limited-time offer with targeted keywords and landing pages.
These use cases show how SEA can be an agile, measurable tool for specific goals — even with small budgets.
Why Paid Search Is Effective
Just by doing a search for a men’s shirt on google.ca to understand the possibility of display. We even sometimes see several models from the same website. We are not always aware of the validity of the business displayed, but one thing is certain, the sites that appear on the first page of search tools are not there by chance most of the time, they use paid referencing, i.e., the placement of advertising in the search tool (the SEA).
An ad like this, when well programmed and using the right keywords will always have a good effect. This kind of traffic, and visitors who come from it are usually of high quality, already knowing what they want to find when they arrive on our website. Many will say in the field of digital marketing that they are qualified users, or qualified targets or audiences.
Dream Visitors
For website publishers, they are very valuable visitors who need to be given a subscription link, for example, to keep them coming back to the site, or to offer them a blog post about the use of the product they have looked at. In short, we give these visitors the service Julia Roberts should have received in the first store she visited in Pretty Woman, with a virtual coffee and a piece of cheesecake.
Search Engine Host Market Share Canada May 2023 - May 2024
Multiple Search Systems
Several years ago, the popular search tool in Quebec was Yahoo. That changed and now, Google and its search and ad placement platform (Google Ads) own over half of all web searches worldwide. Some countries, such as France in 2021, have used Google more than 95% of the time; Canada remains between 90% and 92%, according to live figures from the Search Engine Starts Market: https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/all/canada.
It goes without saying placements on Google, which hold an average of 93% of web searches in the Canadian market, will generally be more expensive than on Bing (5%) and Yahoo (1.5%). But let’s not neglect the less popular search systems, on the contrary, because Bing and Yahoo each have interesting particularities, according to our target audience. The rest after the break.
The Little Brother, SEO
Often associated with SEA, SEO operates manual editing on websites. SEO is for Search Engine Optimization. It consists of organizing different parameters, titles and descriptions on the back end of pages to allow search tools to interpret the content of our site.
Although this method is becoming more and more a standard in website programming, it is, in the medium and long term, a good investment of time for continuous business opportunities, both locally and internationally. Get more information on SEO techniques via the twin article.
Customizing Page Settings to Be Seen Better
Search tools don’t direct all users to your homepage; It depends on the research being done. It is therefore important to adjust our page description and keywords with the content of each page. So, our Contact or our About page shouldn’t have the same keywords as the one in the description of your products and services.
About Paid Search Billing
It’s true that Google’s advertising platform is very powerful, but at what cost? Yes, the amount can also be astronomical, up to more than $10 of the value of the click during the period of full sales of clothing on Boxing Day if the ad was incorrectly scheduled; And in a single night, the bill goes up while we sleep… it’s the case to say so.
This is why it is always necessary to be vigilant when scheduling this kind of announcement. Programming platforms are complex and complex means changing technological with fast evolution with some bug fixes and you must get used to it.
Honestly, unless you work for Google or follow the daily activity, it’s hard to consider yourself an expert in SEA programming. You must be in the tool all week long and even then, there’s a lot to see and understand. High hands to these professionals! I would also like to add to entrepreneurs looking for employees in this field, this is not the kind of job to pay the minimum wage, but a complex profession with a lot of analysis. Come on!
Ad placements offer options for managing costs. A general cost per impression, much like Facebook campaigns, and the Pay Per Click, or simply PPC, option, where each ad is charged per click, rather than impressions.
You can also choose a daily budget, or an auction mode, which is more active but expensive. Costs vary depending on the demand for your ad subject, which you determine in the tool’s targeting settings. The rate varies from $0.35 to $3.00 per click depending on the sector and search traffic. It’s important to check the progress of the auction campaigns and set a budget limit to avoid astronomical billing.
I’ve often had to stop and edit campaigns during holiday sales periods, for example, where the click value was exceeding the profit margin of some products in the clothing class. This is why you must be vigilant in the first years of use. With time, there are certain times of the year when you know it is too busy, and I don’t even dare to suggest it to a client, and we chose other promotional alternatives for the budget after explanation.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Targeting overly broad or expensive keywords.
Linking the ad to a generic page instead of a dedicated landing page.
Launching a campaign without conversion tracking.
Letting the campaign run without monitoring and adjustments (set and forget!).
Conclusion
The law of the jungle is exactly how I describe advertising on search tools. A simple advertisement on television of a competitor and our campaign suffers from the research tools.
Timing is often important in this kind of advertising and I always invite us to let our marketing and communication team aware of the promotional movements scheduled on the search tools, so the webmaster will adjust the layout of the homepage of the website according to the online campaign and so the communication team with the slogans in the email signatures. All these details will add value to your SEA promo, and all your campaigns on all media, actually.
I hope you enjoyed reading this post and helped you.
Thank you, we read on the blog,
Jeff
Production: W+M Services.
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Websites - creation, management and design
I edit the content of existing sites via CMS in addition to creating sites with WordPress and Squarespace. I have been producing website content as a webmaster since 1998.
I help companies get their first website up and I improve the performance of existing sites.
Yes, I’m Mr. Analytics and my reaction time to new digital marketing is daily, which allows my clients to have optional and trend-cutting tools.
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