What is Search Engine Placement? And Why it Matters Today

Ranking high on Google has become the gold standard for marketers. But with Google’s algorithms getting harder to figure out by the day, what is a newbie marketer to do? There are many answers and not everyone works for every type of marketer. But the answer more marketers are turning to these days is a simple one: Search Engine Placement.

But the inevitable question arises: “how do you rank high without spending too much money?” More importantly, how do you achieve your goals without wasting money on a bunch of unqualified leads?

I’ll show you how in just a moment.

But first…

What is Search Engine Placement?

Also called Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising or search engine positioning, search engine placement is a subset of search engine optimization (SEO) that focuses on achieving higher rankings for specific search queries or web pages. 

This is opposed to focusing on sitewide technical SEO improvements or choosing keywords to optimize for.

Search engine placement is a paid online advertising model that allows you to bid for specific keywords, pay a flat fee all month for those keywords, placing your web page in a pre-defined position within Google’s SERP (search engine results page). Your page will appear on Google as an ad, but you pay a flat fee a month for select keywords.

With search engine placement, you only pay Google when your ad is clicked by an online user (which explains why it is also called Pay-Per-Click). 

This online advertising model enables you to display ads in the sponsored results section of Google’s search engine results page.

Now, it can get really confusing to differentiate search engine placement from search engine optimization (SEO). 

Truth is, SEO is one of the several strategies used in the search engine placement process. 

What do I mean by this?…

With search engine placement, your ideal objective is to rank for lucrative keywords that convert and increase your business’ revenue. Therefore, SEO skills are a MUST-have to enable you to sought out select keywords you would be targeting during your search engine placement campaign.

Why is Search Engine Placement important?

SEO is great for long-term growth. But sometimes, what you really want is an immediate boost. 

For one thing, search engine placement is one great way to grow your business. Primarily because it lets you reach the right people when they’re looking for whatever it is that you’re selling. 

When they’re actively searching for keywords related to your content, your products, your services, you can be right there on the top results of SERPs. 

Here’s the thing: 75% of people (myself inclusive) will never scroll past the first page on a Google search.

Then, of course, 98% of searchers choose a business that is on page one of search results.

A recent study by Backlinko also found that the top 3 Google search results get the lion’s share of organic clicks.

So, you can’t afford to be ranking on the second, third, or fourth page of Google.

You just can’t simply publish great content and hope for the best.

Search engine placement is all about getting higher Google rankings because that’s how you dominate the local search game. 

There are a ton of compelling benefits of using search engine placement in your marketing campaigns. 

At the core, your search engine placement results are measurable and trackable. You can see clearly, how your campaigns are performing; including impressions, clicks, and conversions, the amount of traffic you’re getting, and how the results complement your marketing budget.

It also provides you with a better understanding of the behavior and search patterns of your customers and potential customers. For marketers, such insights are super valuable for targeting the right audience. 

If you see positive results with your ads, you can scale up quickly because you’ll be focusing your budget on those campaigns that are paying off. 

The benefits of using search engine placement are endless. 

But a lot of marketers still find it expensive to run ads. Truth is, for the average person, the norm is to pay a digital marketing agency like Digital Hama to run your campaign for you. Make sure you read this post till the end, as I will reveal to you what it takes to run a search engine placement campaign.

Search engine placement is by no means cheap but there are a couple of hacks you can use now that’ll make you spend less every time you run a Google ad. 

And the way you do that is by increasing your quality score.

What is Quality Score?

Quality score is how Google rates the quality and relevance of your keywords and your ads. Google uses quality score to determine your cost-per-click (CPC) and how your ad ranks in the ad auction process. 

So, if you’re trying to master search engine placement, especially Google Ads, you need a solid understanding of quality score. 

That’s because your quality score has a huge influence on the cost and effectiveness of your paid search campaigns. 

With that in mind, how exactly do you increase your quality score, reduce your CPC, and still grab that sweet number one rank in Google without robbing a bank?

How to increase your quality score & improve your Search Engine Placement on Google

Target very specific & longtail keywords

The way search engine placement AKA (PPC) works is, every time someone clicks on your ads, you pay Google some money.

And you only want to pay for keywords that are converting. So, what do you do?

Don’t do a broad match. 

If you go after particular keywords by doing the exact match, your ads will only show up for that particular keyword.

When you go too broad, you’ll end up paying more per click because Google is going to be showing your ads to a lot of people who aren’t clicking on them. 

And you don’t want to be paying Google and not getting results, right?

Here’s the thing: if you target very specific keywords, you improve your quality score. And if your quality score increases, the cheaper you’re going to be paying per click. 

Now, that sounds like something you’ll love.

You also want to focus your efforts on longtail keywords. 

Why? You might ask…

When it comes to head term keywords, they’re very competitive because everyday marketers want to go after them because they have a high search volume. But the irony is, such keywords don’t always drive the highest quality of traffic.

Start off by going more specific with your keywords and going after longtail phrases because you tend to generate more sales from those. And in many cases, those keywords have a lower cost-per-click even though they can make you more money. 

Add in negative keywords

It’s not just about targeting specific keywords. You want to target specific negative keywords. 

For example, let’s say you’re selling computers. When someone types in ‘Apple’ because you’re also a reseller of Apple computers, you may want to add the negative keyword, ‘fruit.’ 

Because if you show up for ads related to Apple and someone is actually searching for the fruit and not computers, you’re going to be wasting money per click, your quality score is going to go down, and your ad costs are going to go through the roof.

So, make sure you add negative keywords in your campaigns.

Continue to optimize your ad text

If your ad text gets more click-through-rates (CTR) than your competitor’s, your cost-per-click (CPC) is going to go down, and your quality score is going to go way up. 

By testing your ad text, you will be able to figure out what works and what doesn’t. 

But if you’re unsure of this, look at your competitors. 

Type in a keyword. 

You can see the ad texts that other people are using at the top. Usually, the people at the top have appealing ad texts and which is getting a ton of clicks. 

If you can’t find a ton of examples when you’re searching for a keyword, go to SEMrush, put in a keyword, and it’ll show you the history of all the people who have been bidding on that keyword and what their ad copy was. 

Optimize your landing page

If your landing page is fantastic, when people click through on your ad, go to your landing page, and buy, your quality score is going to go up. 

If your landing page sucks and people keep bouncing back off, Google is going to drop your quality score. 

Here are two easy things you can do to optimize your landing page and make sure your quality score is always going up:

• Put your keywords on your landing page 

So if someone searches the keyword ‘search engine placement,’ for instance, and your landing page also shows search engine placement, you’re much more likely to keep the visitor on your page and convert. 

Why?

Because they found something they’re genuinely looking for: search engine placement, in this case.

• Continually run tests

Start by installing Crazy Egg on your landing page. Crazy Egg is a visual analytics tool. Using Crazy Egg, you can see where people are getting stuck on your landing page, what they like, how far down they’re scrolling, and what you can improve on that page to create a better user experience. It basically provides you with reports on heat maps.

Then, you want to run an A/B test with Crazy Egg which you can do through the WYSIWYG Editor. Make some tweaks, start running some tests, and you can optimize your conversions. 

Truth is, if you keep paying a dollar per click and in general, you’re only getting one lead or one sale out of 100 clicks, you’re paying $100 per conversion. But if you can optimize your conversion on your landing page by four times using Crazy Egg, or any other A/B testing tool out there, you’re paying $25 per conversion. 

Use SKAG for your campaigns

SKAG stands for Single Keyword Ad Group. If you have a hundred keywords in one ad group, what’s going to happen? Your ad text isn’t going to be related to all of those keywords. 

But on the flip side, if you only have one keyword related to one ad copy, that ad copy is going to be so relevant to that keyword that your quality score is going to climb. People are going to click on it. You’re going to save money. And you’re ultimately going to convert better. 

So instead of writing the same ad text for hundreds of keywords, write the same ad text for one keyword. 

That way, it’s specific each and every single time to the keyword you want to bid on. 

Bottom line on search engine placement

That’s it. Follow all those techniques and tactics, and you’re going to be able to improve your quality score and your inbound marketing efforts.

Now you know what search engine placement is and why it’s super important for your marketing campaigns.

What’s more, my promise I guess…here it is!

What does it take to run a Search Engine Placement Campaign?

Now, you may be asking questions like…

Who can run a search engine placement campaign? or rather…

How do I run a search engine placement campaign?

Well, I geddit…But

What if I told you that you could stop reading this post right now and dive straight into doing search engine placement?

Unfortunately, I can’t, or better still – It depends.

Lemme recap a little…

Search Engine placement basically, is a PPC program that lets users bid for specific keywords but pays a flat fee all month instead of worrying about the cost uncertainty that comes with the regular Google Ads campaigns.

With this in mind, I am afraid to tell you this:

SEARCH ENGINE PLACEMENT CANNOT BE DONE BY JUST ANYONE

Think of search engine placement as the inner circle of the inner circle. What this means is, you are required to have managed a decent-sized Google ad campaign budget which gives you a Partner/Premier Partner status before you could get the luxury of bidding for top positions on specific search queries on Google SERPs.

Just to give you a hint…

According to Google, you are required to meet a 90 days Ad spend of $10,000 in 2020 to get the Partner status. In 2021, the Ad spend is expected to be raised to $20,000 within the same 90 days to get Partner Status. This is the key differentiator between the regular PPC Ad campaigns that could be performed by virtually any newbie and search engine placement campaigns.

However, I’ve got some good news. If you have not yet attained the Ad spend, simply leverage Digital Hama’s network and we will grant you top rankings for any search term or query.

Over to you!

Which challenges do you face when it comes to PPC or getting top quality rankings?

Go ahead and leave a comment below!