About 70% of clicks happen on the results at the top of the search page, or SERP (Search Engine Results Page). Getting your website to the top of the SERP depends on two strategies: 

- SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, includes on-site and off-site strategies that allow you to rank on search results organically, i.e. unpaid. In short, it depends on our skills. We already discussed SEO techniques in a previous article that you can read here (link) 

- SEM or Search Engine Marketing is a technique aimed at developing advertising campaigns on search engines.

Campaigns are based on keywords and the cost is per click (a model called CPC). Below we take a closer look at how to create search engine campaigns. 

Every second, a user types a keyword to search for something on Google: the search engine compares the web pages available to show the most relevant results. Let’s see below how ranking on search engines works. 

How do search engines work?

Before analyzing how Google analyzes pages, let’s find out what the search results page, or SERP, contains: 

- Websites
- Images
- Business listings
- Items for sale 
- Videos

To find web pages and decide which results to show, Google performs 3 actions: 

1) Crawling: content analysis. Through programs or bots, web pages, videos and images are continuously analyzed. 
2) Indexing: classification or scanning of content. Not all content found by search engines is indexed. The key factor to be indexed by Google is creating quality, original content and, above all, using the right keywords.
3) Ranking: the position my website holds on the SERP. Website ranking depends on three elements: keyword relevance, the number of other sites linking to it, and content originality. 

The goal of the whole process is to show the user what they are looking for!

To display web pages, Google analyzes website content through code (such as HTML) which is visually translated into the following sections: 

- Tag- Title (h1): The title must be unmistakable and descriptive, e.g. “artisan pastry shop Catania”, so it must contain the relevant keyword. CMSs, the website-building platforms, allow us to set titles and format them in H1. 

- Website text: the basic rule is to write for customers, so you need to put yourself in the user’s shoes to understand which keywords they type to search for my business or my product.

- Website images: Google doesn’t display images but reads the code, so CMSs allow you to add a description to images: this is the ALT TAG, alternative text, which must contain a keyword that represents the image itself. 

Now let’s find out how to launch a Google Ads campaign and increase conversions on your website!

Search engine marketing - SEM

How SEM works

Campaigns launched on Google Ads are based on an auction system. Each advertiser places a bid, i.e. sets the maximum amount they are willing to pay for a click on the ad (Max CPC). The bid should match the value of the keyword. However, the amount doesn’t depend only on the advertiser but also on the bids made by competitors.

Winning the auction depends on two elements: 
- Competitive bid: therefore the cost per click I’m willing to pay. For example, if I set a max cost of 2 euros and my competitor set a CPC of 1 euro, I will win the auction. 
- Ad relevance: relevance to the searches performed by users. This is evaluated by Google through the quality score, assigning a score from 1 to 10. 

Winning the auction therefore depends on the combination of the two elements: if two competitors have the same bid, the one with the more relevant ad will appear higher; if one of the two has a lower CPC but a more relevant ad, they will win the auction. The ad must exactly match the search terms entered by the user!

How to create a good ad

To highlight ads, it’s important to capture the user’s attention by focusing on three elements: 
1) The headline must match as closely as possible the word typed by the user, e.g. “how to create a website”
2) Add, for example, a promotion in the description “20% off the first year”, or a particularly important piece of information to encourage the customer to click on the ad.
3) Add a call to action, i.e. an invitation to act such as “Try it free”

Going into detail, to create your campaign on Google Ads you will need to: 
- Choose relevant keywords on which to base the ad, meaning they must perfectly meet the user’s expectations at the moment they type their search. For each keyword it’s therefore important to analyze the search volume, i.e. how many people actually search for it.  
- Creating ads means writing an ad that communicates clearly, directly and concisely. To get a good score from Google, it’s important that the texts are closely related to the chosen keywords. Also, characters are limited, so it’s important to be able to capture the user’s attention quickly.
- Build an effective landing page: the landing page is the page the user lands on after clicking the ad: it’s where the conversion from visitor to lead/customer must happen.  Depending on the campaign, you can decide to create a specific, well-structured landing page or use a page from your website. For example, if I’m launching a limited-time promotion, it’s advisable to create an ad hoc page for our campaign; if instead I have an e-commerce, I can send users to the site’s product showcase page. On how to create an effective landing page you can find more details in this article

Whatever the choice, it’s important that the landing page contains the keywords selected for our campaign. 

So, to ensure our campaign gets good results and turns a visitor into our customer, it’s important to think of relevant keywords, write clear ad copy that’s aligned with the keywords, and build an appealing landing page! 
Flazio.com lets you create a high-performing landing page for your campaign in just a few clicks. But that’s not all: you can measure your campaign conversions simply by copying and pasting the script received from Google into the page chosen for the campaign.

Also, we can launch your advertising campaigns on Google ADS and we’ll give you a free credit of €120. For more information about the offer click here!