The hard work of Search Engine Marketing

The Globe and Mail is running a four-part series on online advertising ideas for small business.  As part of the series, Ivor Tossell writes about search engine marketing (SEM) and the ongoing work of refining keywords and copy.  You can find the article “Find your search ad sweet spot” here.

The key message: getting started in SEM is smart, but continuing to refine the targeting and messaging is critical.

Search engine marketing is essentially a zero sum game.  Every customer who clicks through on one of your keywords is one who does not click on another business’ link.  (Yes, they can always backtrack and click later, but then you’ve just taken that second click away from someone else.)  Your competitors will respond to every move you make and try to steal that traffic back, and when they do, you will need to react.

Because of the give and take involved, once you start with SEM, you should plan on investing time every week checking and refining performance.