We’re back with seven more SEM tips that you need to know. Get ready for a fast-paced overview of some critical SEM areas that you may have neglected, or not even known about. Here we go!

Stop Keyword Stuffing

Without a doubt, you can have too much of a good thing. This has never been truer than with keywords. Outdated SEM practices of cramming as many keywords as possible onto a page were once accepted methods, but this is no longer the case.

For one, Google does not need pages to be keyword stuffed to understand the content—the Hummingbird update increased the search engine’s ability to better understand semantics. Second, Google has also levied staunch penalties for sites that continue to jam their content full of the same word or phrase. Unless you enjoy the boom and bust cycle of a site engaging in keyword stuffing, it’s time to move on.

Pay Attention to Your Bounce Rate

Your bounce rate is the percentage of visitors who, after clicking through to your site, “bounce” back to the search engine results without viewing any additional pages. You should care about your bounce rate because Google uses it as an indication of the user experience. A high bounce rate suggests that your content is not meeting user needs and should be served less often in the results.

That said, you may expect a high bounce rate for some pages, like directions or contact information for your business. Additionally, blog posts often have a high bounce rate because, after reading about a topic, the user is satisfied.

Write for Influencers

Typically, most bloggers write for their end users. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this. However, if you’re trying to get your site or business off the ground, consider writing for influencers. Influencers are those that your visitors (or desired visitors) depend on for information and the curation of online content.

Sometimes, just changing the slant, depth, or tone of your article will make it appeal to influencers, which can exponentially increase the reach of your writing.

Promote Your Content

Reaching out to influencers is one of the critical steps of content promotion, which is often overlooked when it comes to content marketing. Although you’d like to think that just writing a great piece is enough to get it found in Google, you likely need to reach out on Twitter, Facebook, or other outlets to help increase the visibility of your content. This may mean sending dozens of emails to get only a few responses, but it’s an essential part of generating value from your work.

Keep Tabs on Your Backlinks

One of the great benefits of reaching out is creating authentic backlinks for your content. Growing your backlink profile establishes your authority in the eyes of Google and is a key component to moving up the search rankings. That said, you also need to monitor your backlink profile for bad, spammy backlinks. Poor SEM practices of the past can come back to haunt your site, just like keyword stuffing. Periodically check your backlink profile to stay on top of any changes.

Check out Google Trends

When it comes to finding topics to write about, Google Trends can offer insights as to what is popular and when popularity changes. This can help you plan out your content marketing calendar to release posts at just the right time. Additionally, you can also see if a rise or decline in site traffic is connected to broader, industry-wide trends. Just take the information with a grain of salt—Google Trends suggests correlation far more often than causation. Check out the SEM tips to earn money online.

Clean up Your Sitemap

Your sitemap helps crawlers move efficiently through your site. You can check Google Webmaster Tools for any sitemap warnings or errors. Additionally, you can find out if there’s a big discrepancy between the number of pages submitted and the number of pages indexed by Google, which can indicate a technical problem with your sitemap or your website.

SEM is a big topic—and one that’s constantly changing. These SEM tips will help you make changes that have long term, positive effects for your site. If someone’s offering a one-time change to triple your visitors, it’s either a false claim or one that will land you in hot water with Google (probably both). Stick to our time-tested tips, and you’ll enjoy steady, honest growth of organic traffic to your website.

Many small businesses think running a paid search campaign is too expensive and don’t have a marketing budget to compete with bigger, more well known brands. We’ve gathered the 5 best search engine marketing tips to enable your small business to compete with the big guys.

1. Keyword Selection

More often than not, big brands have more marketing dollars which can enable them to outbid you in paid search auctions. An important aspect, and one of the most crucial tips, for being competitive with these brands is to be strategic about which keywords you go after. Try and focus on keywords that produce quality leads and conversions for you. Additionally, utilizing long tail keywords as part of your strategy will allow you to be more targeted and cheaper. Also keep in mind that it will be less competitive due to the fact that there will be less traffic coming from long tail keywords. After choosing a good keyword strategy, you can also save money by restricting certain keywords with match types and negative keywords. This is an excellent way to reduce wasted spend.

2. Day/Geographic Parting

Another good way to stay competitive against big brands is through localization. If you’re a mom and pop shop or you’re focused in a specific area, it’s a good idea to restrict your geographic targeting. There’s no need to show up for keywords all around the country if you only serve your city or state. With the same reasoning of geographic parting, you want to also utilize day parting. With day parting, you can set your ads to only run during certain times of day. By limiting your ad to only run when you can make the most conversions, you can still be competitive.

3. Ad Extensions

Ad extensions are a great way to include additional information to your ads. If you’re only going to be able to run an ad on a limited basis, packing as much useful information about your business in your ad can make the difference. Google offers a variety of ad extensions that can be helpful, such as reviews, click-to-call links, location information, and site links that bring people to additional pages of your website. By offering as much info as you can, users have more options to see something they’re interested in and therefore give you a greater chance of receiving an ad click and ultimately making a sale.

4. Engaging and Enticing Ad Copy

When outbidding your competitors for a top position is not an option, you must think of other ways to stand out. Writing alluring ad copy can be one of them. Standing out with your ad, either through a good positioning statement or an enticing promotion, can help you get the click. Do some competitive research and try to make your business seem like the logical choice.

5. Looking Outside of Google

New advertisers often forget that the paid search world exists outside of Google. Google is often times the most expensive search engine and rightly so because it gets the most traffic, but there our other more cost effective and less competitive search engines. For example, you may want to consider running on the Bing network. It can be just as effective and often times at a much lower cost. Additionally, there are lots of second tiered engines on the market like LookSmart, Admarketplace, etc. These tend to be really inexpensive but also lower quality in search traffic. They still merit consideration as part as your overall search strategy. Search engine marketing tips, tutorials, and professional search engine marketing services for your website are all available on isdmmt.