How To Make The Most Out of SEM in This New Normal?

The COVID-19 crisis has changed everything.

You probably don’t need us to tell you that. You have experienced it first hand.

There has been a significant negative impact on many brick and mortar businesses. But, the digital community has changed for the better during the pandemic.

There has been a 47% rise in broadband usage during the quarantine. 

Search engine marketing (SEM) and related trends have also undergone drastic changes. 

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Given that it takes just 21 days to form a habit, customer behavior has also changed.

What businesses need to do today is not limited to going digital. Honestly, if you don’t have a website till now, you are seriously behind your digital counterparts.

What businesses need to do is understand the pulse of the changing times. And tap on the latest trends in a meaningful way. 

It would be wise to take the help of a seasoned search engine marketing company first. So that you can formulate a strategy that can help adapt to the new normal. Along with making the best possible use of the opportunities.

Five ways to make the most of your SEM strategy

Here are five recent trends that you can inculcate in your SEM and digital marketing strategy to gain great returns in the new normal:  

1. Target Better Keywords 

Keywords are the base of any SEM strategy. Keywords are the words that you need to be found for. These are the worlds that you target so that you can rank higher in Google Search rankings for these terms. 

With changing times, customer interest, and search queries are also evolving. 

You must reconsider the keywords you were previously targeting. 

One of the most noticeable changes has been the decline of  “service/commodity near me,” searches. Customers have now started searching for “service/commodity online.”

Searches related to new forms of content like podcasts, audiobooks, and videobooks are also rising.

Now it should be a business’s priority to revamp their keyword research. There is really no benefit in ranking for keywords that your customers aren’t searching for.

Either you reach where your customers want to find you, or they’ll find your competitors.

You should use keyword research tools like Google Ad Keyword Planner, SemRush, and Google Trends to find relevant keywords.

Once you have identified the keywords you need to rank for, you should use those words correctly. 

Don’t just randomly stuff irrelevant keywords on your website and social media posts.

Once your online presence is keyword optimized you’d sure notice higher traffic.

2. Don’t forget AI and VR

Most people who are forced to stay home are getting bored. 

You need something immersive to keep them engaged with your product or services.

Now, customers are not visiting physical stores. It is also getting tough to offer them proper product experience. From a business point of view, it is challenging to analyze customer behavior. 

All these issues can be tackled with the help of the right technology 

Virtual product experiences and the use of augmented reality on websites and social platforms can keep customers engaged and interested in your business.

With Artificial Intelligence and machine learning-based tools, businesses can get predictive analysis. This will help collect and comprehend data and make better decisions.

Your search engine presence will be greatly affected if you use VR and AR technology. And AI/ML technology should be used to gather actionable data-based insights to enhance your presence on all digital channels.

3. Chatbots 

The new normal has done away with time schedules for most people. The concept of active hours for businesses has changed.

There has been a sharp spike in the amount of time that people spend online. And this means that businesses need to be accessible at all times.

It is important to use chatbots to lower response times and have an active digital presence.

A study suggested that 41% of customers didn’t mind interacting with bots if their queries were being solved on time. While you can surely rank high in search, it would be no good if your customer switches to your competitors because they got no response from your business.

4. Schema Markups

If you don’t know what structured schema markup is, you need to contact an expert immediately to not lose out on search engine rankings anymore.

An expert search engine marketing company would know that schema markup can drastically affect your rankings, even though not directly.

Having or not having schema markups for your webpages won’t make your page rank or not rank on Google. It will, however, help search engine crawlers better understand what your webpage is about.

This, in turn, will make sure your webpages show up for the right search queries. Isn’t that precisely what you wanted?

Well, if you don’t think understanding metadata and generating schema markup codes is something you can do, you can get a search engine marketing company to do that for you (And of course, a lot else too.)

5. Be Vocal for Social Issues

The world’s biggest economies and the strongest financial powers have stumbled in these times of crisis.

It is naïve to assume that your customers still have the same buying capacity. Or that they would be ready to splurge on services and products that they don’t absolutely need.

Here, you need to understand the fine line of difference between your SEM and sales strategy.

Unlike your sales strategy, your SEM strategy also aims to build your social and digital presence. Your business needs to come out as a social, empathetic, and sensitive part of society.

It is wise to be vocal about social and local issues.

Businesses should take note of the fact that audiences have applauded those who have extended helping hands in these challenging times and even called out the likes of Victoria Beckham and Virgin Atlantic for not playing positive roles.

Ensure your social communication is not tone-deaf, and your social media and website content is regularly updated, depending on topical issues.

Pro-Tip 

Do not reduce your emphasis on paid digital marketing and ad campaigns. It might seem that they aren’t yielding results today as people are buying less. 

But reducing your campaigning will make you go out of sight, out of mind.

Around 41% of businesses in a study admitted that cutting down their digital marketing budgets in the first half of 2020 was not smart.

Not Letting Opportunities Go Unattended 

It is not just the evolving digital scene; you also need to make changes to your supply chain and manage several other safety aspects.

Amidst all this, it is likely that your SEM strategy won’t be on the top of your priority list.

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And while we understand your predicament, all the above mentioned SEM trend integrations are possible with a team that is available 24/7 and can focus on multiple happenings in the digital world.

Depend on Uplers for that.

They don’t just have a dedicated team that will take complete control of your business’ search engine presence, but also the required experience.

Uplers has a global team that can practically keep your SEM and digital campaigns up and running 24/7. 

They also have a knack for identifying opportunities and acting fast. 

Brace the new normal with Uplers handling your SEM strategy and yielding unprecedented results for you.

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