The Biggest Problem with SEM and How You Can Tackle It

If you have an online store and you haven’t started considering Search Engine Marketing (SEM), then you’re in for a huge challenge. That’s because, just like with any other sophisticated advertising channel, using SEM entails a lot of patience and years to build up expertise. On the other hand, if you’ve already exerted some SEM efforts, you may be wondering how to channel those efforts into obtaining conversions and loyal customers. The key in both cases is to identify what the major problem is with your SEM so that you may anticipate any possible ramifications.

Often, the biggest SEM issue that most online marketers face is this: the dilemma of making the most of their efforts. As an online business owner and marketer, how do you make sure your efforts will result in success? After a further dissection of this problem, we have derived its root causes below:

  • The multitude of competitors

Compared to traditional advertising where dominating brands are more of an oligopoly, Search Marketing allows for any type of industry-specific site to rank. There might be sites that constantly rise in rankings due to their consistent online efforts, but at the end of the day, Google often presents a variety of sites on its SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). This is where the issue of multiple competitors surface.

However, the solution lies in having your own set of good online practices which Google will take notice of. See the ways to increase your rankings through Page and Domain Authority goals.

  • Constantly changing algorithms

As an online marketer, it’s quite scary to think about how Google can just introduce new algorithm updates with any warning. What you’ve worked so hard for may become obsolete in a moment once the search engine deems your practices as unacceptable.

But it’s important to remember that, at the end of the day, what Google really wants is to make sure its users can find the information they’re looking for with ease. False information isn’t valued hence black hat techniques are no longer in fashion. As another trick, it’s crucial to pay close attention to the latest news updates which Google releases. This way, you’ll no longer be caught off guard if a major algorithm gets released.

  • The ambiguous value of link building

Perhaps you’ve already begun submitting some Guest Post proposals to a few high authority websites. While a number have accepted with some having already published your content, you may be wondering whether this actually contributes to your overall standing, SERPs-wise. But this is where it pays to be patient.

Link Building entails relationship building. This is especially important considering that Google wants to make sure your backlinks can contribute to the user-friendliness of the search engine. They also want to ensure that sites will rank because of its quality of content and level of visitor engagement. This means that you may need to go beyond one-time submissions and actually have a handful of top ranking sites which you can stay partners with.

  • Competition when it comes to picking optimal keywords

Who knew words could cost so much? When it comes to SEM, it’s necessary to know which keywords can work well for your site. To give you an idea of how competitive keywords can get, the words “digital camera reviews” have a monthly, local search volume of 246,000. And with the use of keyword analysis tools, you might find that the combination roughly has a 96% keyword difficulty score.

So, if you’re thinking of investing in these keywords on Google Ads, looking for a niche of less competitive keywords might be a better alternative for your site. This means that you may not need to compete for the all-popular keywords at all. A unique keyword combination that targets your intended customers specifically will definitely cost way less than other highly-competitive keywords.

  • The new, mobile-oriented indexing system

Google has acknowledged how most online searches are done via mobile phones now. And this has translated into the search engine’s efforts to release the first mobile-index. Experiments are currently being done with the objective of prioritising user-friendliness via mobile phones and not desktops.

So, if you’ve already started implementing efforts to optimise your site via desktop, now’s the time to start thinking about mobile-friendliness. In fact, there are website creation tools out there which have functions that can increase the mobile-friendliness of your content instantly.

As you can see, the biggest problem in SEM is exacerbated by various root causes. But there’s no need to fret. As long as you ensure you’ve expended every effort on the aspects that matter, your strategic hard work will pay off towards significantly ranking on Google.