When you think of SEM, you probably relate it to SEO. Search engine optimization or SEO is optimizing keywords to get traffic on a website, a form of unpaid marketing, whereas search engine marketing or SEM is the action taken to market a business using paid advertisements that appear on search engine results pages or SERPs. Clearly, SEM is the most important tool in online marketing and growing yourself or your business online. Thus, here are some search engine marketing statistics 2020 to kick-start 2021.
What Is SEM?
In SEM, advertisers bid on keywords that users of Google or other search engines might use while searching for a product or service, which additionally allows promoting products and services alongside those search results. These ads, often known by the term PPC or pay-per-click ads, are available in various formats. Few of them are short, text-based ads whereas the rest of them, such as product listing ads (Shopping advertisements), are more visual, product-based advertisements with added information such as price & reviews.
Therefore, SEM matters because it is the fastest way to get new consumers for your business, online. 2020 marketing statistics also suggest that search engine marketing is the greatest marketing tool to reach the potential and motivated consumers, who’re looking for such products and with SEM, they will definitely be interested in purchasing your services or products.
Especially for small businesses, SEM is the best way to promote and reach newer consumers. These are the main reasons to adapt to SEM:
- It generates brand awareness on search engines
- It generates revenue more quickly
- It moulds as per your budget and grows as you grow
- It takes your business to the right people
- It’s pocket-friendly as per your budget
According to the data, Google is the most used search engine worldwide in 2020. Google’s market share has remained the highest all around the globe for the longest time.
Image Source: alphametic.com
As per Statcounter’s website, Google has 92.16% worldwide market share among all the search engines as of November 2020. Alone in India, it’s market share remained at 98.74%. This clears out the importance of a search engine in today’s digital age and it should be mandatory to have a search engine marketing strategy to reach the maximum number of people.
While wrapping up the year, Google released a video sharing the most frequent word that appeared in this year’s search – ‘Why’ & showcased how a question can be answered in many ways through this thought-provoking concept.
SEM As A Continuous Growing Industry
2020 SEM trends show how much potential this industry has for marketing, brand awareness, and campaigns. From link building to paid ads, Google search services have proved beneficial for both, the businesses and Google itself.
Every business, especially after the greatest impact on the global economy in 2020, is now either thriving online or trying to survive through it. Most businesses allocate more than 40% of their budget for search engine marketing. Google’s annual revenue in the last decade has seen a significant rise of 10-15% every year!
With new services and businesses introducing themselves every day, it is no doubt that the best way they can reach the maximum number of potential consumers is through search engine marketing!
Mobile Search & Location Based Marketing
At the start of the year, it was reported that there were 3.5 billion users worldwide using smartphones This number is expected to increase by 3.8 billion by 2021. It is obvious that most of the searches are happening through mobile phones.
With the increasing number of mobile phone users, smart businesses are configuring their websites to more mobile-friendly functioning. It has been noted that before trusting any business, users search about them online to see their reliability and value. Even after entering the stores, about 40% of the consumers are on their phones looking at the brand’s website before buying a product or a service.
Mobile search is most likely to beat desktop searches by the end of 2021. This is the reason most businesses rely on mobile search for search engine marketing.
The consumers are most likely to search for the closest businesses. ‘Stores Near Me’ is one of the most searched phrases on Google. Hence, local businesses should keep their SEM updated and create brand awareness in the nearby areas. As with Google Analytics and paid ads, you can target nearby customers and with more options available, it is likely for your business to achieve speedy growth naturally.
Keywords & User Experience
The keyword is the tool that fuels the search engine. Mostly 3 words are used in a normal search mostly on mobile phones, however, desktop searches have 6 words or more. Every business and brand should be aware of the latest stats and keyword trends to keep themselves up on the SERPs.
It is also found that the consumers between the age group 18-34 years trust the better reviewed and frequently shown businesses on SERPs by 91% more, than the ones without reviews or inconsistent SERP outcomes. Therefore, it is advisable for the businesses to stay up-to-date with the SEM strategies and thrive more.
Functional Traditional Marketing Strategies
Online marketing is an ever-changing industry. Every day, there are new trends coming in and marketers often follow the same. However, there are some traditional marketing strategies that are still proven to be the best source to drive high traffic.
CONTENT
It is no surprise that content is an all-time king. Most marketers still root for the best content to include in their SEM strategy. Without good content, no consumer will stay for more than a few seconds, or worse, won’t be able to know about your existence. Even Google values quality and updated content, which is why about 40% of the marketers publish content at least once a week. To stay ahead or relevant, if some older content is making sense in the present light, you can update it and it’ll still be shown on the SERPs.
IMAGES
About 25-27% of Google’s searches have images in them. Updating images in your existing content, using them in your current ones or even creating your own will take you a long way in search engine marketing.
VIDEOS
Most of the Millenials and Gen Z consumers are 60% more likely to indulge in video search results or video searches. Videos are likely to drive more conversion rates by five times. Therefore, including videos in your marketing strategies will give you a better outcome.
Also, Backlinking, SEO & PPC are the ways to get ahead on the SERPs. Hence, keep your business marketing tactics at par with upgraded SEM strategy.
The Future Of SEM
With the technological advancements, SEM has also seen AI-based search as another tool to include in this strategy. The tool is voice search. With Google Assistant, Siri, Alexa, and more AI-based assistants to help us through, it is likely for more businesses to include such features in their content to drive more consumers.
Many digital marketers see content marketing and SEO as the most effective tools to drive new customers. However, SEM being in the light, and as per its services like sponsored links, paid search, PPC etc. it is not going anywhere and is here to stay for a very long time.
The businesses that kept their search engine marketing on going, shined through, and are moving on to be the highest star in the SEM universe. As most of the people are staying indoors & as 2020 marketing statistics showed, search engines have proven to be the light in the content world to learn, grow, and stay informed.