How to build a paid search strategy on a small budget

You have to bid on a keyword for your paid ad to appear in the search engines. When you “win” the bid, your ad will appear in one of the paid search positions on the search engine results page.  

To keep your small business marketing budget in check, you’ll need to adopt some bidding strategies and tactics that can help you optimize your campaigns and get results. Ask yourself these questions as you create and monitor your ads: 

• Do I need calls or clicks? With the power to leverage call-only or click-only campaigns, you can encourage the kind of contact you want. 

• Am I looking for actionable results? If so, consider using display marketing for retargeting customers instead of taking a blanket approach and simply advertising to searchers. 

• Am I outranking my competitors? If not, then try using a portfolio bidding strategy to target your local competitors. This approach gives you the ability to manage your budget better and set a percentage of time that you would like to outrank your competitor of the same keywords. You could attempt to outrank them 100% of the time, but that would come at a higher cost than most small businesses are comfortable with. 

•  How are my campaigns performing against defined KPIs? If you’re not getting the clicks, calls or impressions you’d like, adjust your bidding strategy and competitor targets based on your analytics data.  ,

• How relevant is the content on my landing page? Does it deliver a good user experience? By optimizing your landing page to align with the targeted keywords closely, you can ensure that you’re giving users the information they want. 

•  In addition, by giving them easy navigation and simple conversion, you can encourage more meaningful interactions, which can help increase the landing page quality score. (A quality score is assigned by the search engines and serves as an estimate of the quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages. As your quality score rises, you may receive lower prices and better ad positions.) 

• How can I provide searchers with information without them interacting with my ad? Use ad extensions to serve up information like your phone number, address, site links, callouts, or structured snippets. 

As a small business owner, doing everything yourself is the norm. But tackling SEM on your own may not be the best use of your time and your marketing budget. So, before you set up your first ads and bidding strategy, take a moment to consider your options. Because while you can manage your SEM, can you afford to spend time on it?  

If you decide to go it alone, you might consider hiring a local SEM consultant who can walk you through the process. That way, you can spend less time learning SEM and more time tackling your campaigns. And if you can afford to keep the consultant on retainer, they can help keep your campaigns going if your schedule gets too busy or you need a hand. 

For true DIY-ers who want to learn the ins and outs of SEM on their own, expect to spend some quality time with each search engine’s tools, Moreover, find a good glossary — which can go a long way in helping you understand all of the jargon and campaign options available.  

Whichever path you choose, know that you can always change course. You can start by managing your paid search yourself and then hire a consultant to help as needed. Additionally, you could find someone to handle it full time.  

Don’t get intimidated by advertising on search engines because SEM is a principal opportunity for companies of all sizes. Hopefully, these tips will help you get started, no matter your budget.  

If you’d like to learn more best practices for small business digital marketing, check out The Small Business’ Guide to Email Marketing and Four Hacks for Entrepreneur’s Social Media Marketing.