With many SEO/SEM consultants popping up these days, how will you know which provider would be the best for your business? Today we run through the 8 things a true blue SEM consultant will help to execute for your business and get those leads converting for you consistently in the long term!
#1 Optimization and restructuring of AdWords account structure
This may seem like a very basic gesture but you should be wary of SEM consultants that purely execute and not suggest strategies to improve existing account structures. This is especially so if you are bringing in an SEM consultant to an exsiting Adwords campaign. While the SEM consultant should respect business decisions, it should not be an excuse to not offer constructive suggestions when deem necessary.
#2 Keyword discovery and research
A great SEM consultant should always do their due diligence and conduct basic keyword discovery and research even if you have provided them with a base list of keywords. This is an action that should also be taken by your SEM consultant on a quarterly or half yearly basis as searcher habits can change and you might be operating on a list of outdated keywords.
#3 Text ad creation and optimization
A good strategy is useless without great execution, your SEM consultant should be expected to consistently assist in ad creations and optimizations as deemed fit. You should also expect them to vet the ads with you post-creation to make sure that it fits your brand positioning and image.
#4 Call and conversion tracking
This is one of the most crucial tasks as a SEM consultant, to ensure that all conversions are being tracked and attributed to the adword campaigns correctly. As this directly reflects on their KPI and also your campaign tracking, your SEM consultant should be offering to set this up for you and periodically checking it to make sure it works.
#5 Geotargeting
As a local business, it will not make economical sense for your ads to be running regionally or even worldwide. Your SEM consultant should make sure that one of the first tasks is to establish where your business draws customers from and where it intends to operate. With this information, they should be able to help you to specifically target certain countries of interest to increase conversion and decrease spending.
#6 Remarketing
Remarketing is a great way to target repeated customer that perhaps visit through display network placement, search adwords or maybe different media content areas. SEM consultant will ensure your ads are spending at a cost effective level while appearing to past visitors. A part of strategy planning for your digital marketing plan to better utilize ads spending on other key digital areas.
#7 Landing page optimization
Once a searcher clicks the ad, the landing page plays an equally important part of getting the searcher to convert. A great SEM consultant will assist in the creation and optimization of the landing page. They should know the formula of a good landing page and the elements necessary to increase conversion opportunities. Optimizing your landing page will also help to increase quality scores which in turn might help lower your adgroup spendings.
#8 Consistent result analysis
Last but not least your SEM consultant should keep you in the loop with a monthly reporting session complete with analysis of any trends, key statistics on impressions, click-through rates etc. This should be a consistent activity that they should keep up with and there shouldn’t be any excuse to have it less than every quarter.
All in all great SEM consultants will go out of their way to help you achieve the best results within your budget. If you find yourself demanding more from them than they are achieving or suggesting, you should consider looking for a different SEM consultant. In Adssential Marketing’s experience, these are all basic activities that we execute for all our clients to ensure they achieve their best results year on year. If you are not satisfied with your current SEM consultant, feel free to contact us for a free consultation and analysis and see how we can outperform your current provider.