Is Your Dublin, GA Business Harnessing the Power of SEM?

Search engine marketing (SEM) uses paid ad strategies to present your brand, products, and services to the users searching for solutions that are relevant to your company. Successful SEM relies on the combined power of strategic SEO and competitive ad spending on search engines like Google or Bing to increase conversions and grow your customer base. All your SEM efforts should drive you toward the ultimate goal of a good ROI per campaign and a higher bottom line.

So, what does SEM have to do with Dublin, Georgia? Considering Dublin has a population of nearly 64,000 people and is one of the many cities in the state experiencing continual economic growth, it’s wise for companies based in or serving Dublin to begin using SEM strategies to gain more customers throughout the city.

Businesses and customers alike in Dublin use search engines to find the products, services, and additional solutions to satisfy their needs. Through SEM, you can ensure your company appears at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs) for every search relating to your company.

Let’s look at the steps you can take to being benefiting from Dublin-targeted SEM:

Step 1: Choose Your Preferred Paid Advertising Platform(s)

Google Ads

Everyone knows Google is the king of search engines with more than an 88% share of the nation’s market for desktop and mobile searches. Users flock to Google for quick, thorough, relevant answers because it boasts:

• Vast indexing capabilities
• Sophisticated algorithms
• Infrastructure built for speed
• Intuitive design

Marketing agencies also opt to utilize Google not just because it is so popular among the public but because of its advanced advertising platforms, tools, and support solutions. From Google Ads to GA4 and Google Search Console, marketers can utilize these tools to help their clients grow their brand, customer base, revenue, and more.

When you choose Google Ads as one of your SEM platforms, your ads can appear:

• On all Google’s search sites, including Google Search, Google Play, Google Maps, and under Google’s shopping tab
• On the Google Display Network, which consists of more than 2 million websites, videos, and apps

Microsoft Ads

While Google’s capabilities are mighty and won’t diminish anytime soon, there is still an audience to capture through Microsoft. Search engines on Microsoft’s network include:

• Bing
• Yahoo
• DuckDuckGo
• AOL
• Additional partner sites

These search engines may maintain smaller percentages of shares on the search market, but they are still worthwhile to consider as consumers continue using them to find businesses that can provide the solutions they need.

When considering which search engine(s) to include in your SEM strategy to gain even more leads and customers in Dublin, GA, it’s important to evaluate all your options and decide if Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, or both are the right networks for your SEM campaign. If 88% of the nation’s search market share belongs to Google, it’s safe to assume roughly 88% of Dublin residents use Google as their preferred search engine and about 12% choose the ones affiliated with Microsoft.

Step 2: Create Your SEM Campaign

Once you choose your network(s), it’s time to create your campaign strategy. This is where you decide what your SEM goals will be and how you will achieve those goals throughout the life of your campaign. Goals can include:

• Brand, product, or service awareness
• Increase in leads
• More conversions
• More website traffic

Now is the time to set your SEM intentions and move your campaign in the right direction toward your goals.

Keyword Research Helps Create a Winning Strategy

SEM requires you to bid on the keywords that are relevant to your company and audience. It’s crucial to research the keywords your Dublin audience uses to find products and services like the ones you sell, because it ensures you are bidding on the most effective keywords for your strategy. The better you understand the keywords that people in Dublin use in their searches, the better your bidding strategy will be and the more likely your ads are to rank above Dublin-targeting competitors and appear at the top of relevant search results.

Additionally, researching keywords for your ad content leads to SEO-focused content that organically boosts your performance on the search engines (that’s why it’s called search engine optimization). Keyword research shows what terms and phrases users are searching for, which tells you what kind of keywords your ad content should feature. Conduct research and use your findings optimize the content of your:

• Search ads
• Display ads
• Landing pages
• Website

Strategic Bidding Uses Your Ad Budget Wisely and Effectively

As mentioned, your ads go through a bidding process before they can appear in front of the right users. You will need to set up a bidding strategy to ensure your budget spend is used as effectively as possible and not wasted on irrelevant searches or irrelevant users.

Google uses your Ad Rank to understand where your ad should fall in comparison with your competitors’ ads. Ad Rank is based on factors like:

• Bid settings, or the maximum amount you will pay for each ad click
• Ad relevancy, or how relevant or useful your ad and landing page content is to the search
• Auction competition, or how well your ad compares to an ad with a similar Ad Rank—an ad with a similar Ad Rank but slightly less relevant content or poorer bid strategy will rank lower

Bidding strategies and ad budgets matter to your Ad Rank. This does not mean you have to have the highest possible ad budget or spending limit to rank well with your search ads. It just means you have to be highly strategic when it comes to creating your ads and choosing the right bidding strategy for your campaign.

We recommend automated bidding or Smart Bidding to get the most interactions and maximum conversions from your Dublin audience.

Step 3: Set Up Geotargeting

Whether your business is headquartered in Dublin, Georgia, or the city is included in your service area, you can use the power of geotargeting within your search engine marketing to zero in on your audience and ensure your ads are viewed by quality users.

Google Ads and Microsoft Ads offer a range of geotargeting settings that allow you to be as specific or broad as you would like to be with your targeting efforts. Your company could benefit from only targeting users in a certain area of Dublin, or perhaps you would do well to reach not only residents but also nonresidents who have shown an interest in the area through past behaviors. Both platforms give you the ability to fine-tune your location settings to reach a broader or more narrow audience, gain more leads, and experience more business growth.

You are not limited to one location, either. If your company serves multiple cities throughout Georgia or any other state, you can set up geotargeting for up to 1,000 locations, optimizing your SEM campaign to reach all the right users in all your service areas.

Step 4: Evaluate Your Campaign’s Performance and Make Necessary Adjustments

Once your campaign is finalized with the right geotargeting settings, effective bidding strategies, quality ads, and landing pages that feature strong, well-researched keywords, it’s time to launch it.

You can evaluate your campaign’s performance at any time to determine how effective your ads are at growing your brand or customer base throughout Dublin. If at any point you want to pivot your goals, make content adjustments, or revise any aspect of your SEM strategy, you certainly can. Evaluation is a necessary aspect of SEM as it helps you develop the strongest campaign possible to reach your Dublin audience.

M&R features an in-house team of digital experts who eat, sleep, and breathe search engine marketing. From researching the right keywords and designing the right ads to launching and managing a successful campaign, our team is ready to help you grow your market in Dublin or any desired target area. Give any one of our friendly account managers a call today to begin harnessing the power of SEM! 478-621-4491

The team at M&R is obsessed with search engine marketing and all its benefits. Want proof? Then check out our ultra-comprehensive guide to search engine marketing:

M&R’s Definitive Guide to Search Engine Marketing

And check out our most recent SEM articles for even more details about this effective marketing tool:

• Common SEM Pain Points and How to Fix Them
• Do Microsoft Ads Work? Reasons Microsoft Ads Can’t Be Ignored
• How Your Business Can Leverage Google Local Service Ads to Generate Leads
• How SEM Strategy Can Help You Beat the Competition
• Accelerate Business Growth with SEM
• Everything Your Business Needs to Know about Search Engine Marketing
• Using Search Engine Marketing to Boost New Services

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