Search Marketing — Exercise

If you have plans to advertise your website on a search engine, this exercise will help you get started. Answering these questions will prepare the groundwork for search marketing:

• How do you segment your market? Which segments do you target? How do you differentiate your offering for each target segment?
• What keywords (and landing pages) have you chosen to draw target customers? Distinguish between short and long tail keywords. (Think segments, think personas).
• Use Google Ads Keyword Planner to research and refine your choice of keywords?
• Which competitor keywords, if any, do you want to target? Is it feasible/advisable to incorporate competitor keywords within your content?
• Choose a pricing model. CPC (cost per click) where advertisers pay only for clicks, is a good to begin with, especially if the goal is to attract prospects to your website. However, if you are seeking conversion, you should go for the CPA model.
• Use Google Ads Keyword Plan Forecast to gauge how much to bid for your chosen keyword? What other factors do you need to consider? (The average CPC on Google Ads varies substantially by keyword, industry and location).
• In the context of Google’s advertising architecture, how would you structure your advertisements in terms of campaigns and groups?
• What ad assets are best suited for your business?
• Estimate your return on advertising spend and optimize bid with the Keyword Search Volume Forecast facility supported by Google Ads Keyword Planner. When advertising commences, compute your ROI based on advertising results.