Frequently Asked Questions

What is Search Engine Marketing?

Search Engine Marketing incorporates a range of activities, all designed to give your business maximum exposure on Internet Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Ask and Baidu.

This exposure is achieved by understanding search engine indexing rules, managing and working with their paid search platforms, coordinating efforts with various networks to boost traffic and creating interest and activity through various social media technologies.

Why does my business need Search Engine Marketing?

Having a good search engine position is like having a retail store in the busiest area of a town centre. When more potential customers see the store, more of them come in and buy from you. Search Engine Marketing brings more visitors to your website, and that in turn leads to more customers and more revenue for you.

Is it a one-off process?

It would be, if your competitors were standing still. However, your competitors are also using Search Engine Marketing to steal site visitors from you. Therefore, if you invest in Search Engine Marketing, you will see an increase in site visitors which will fall over time if you don’t continue to optimize your site and protect your Search Engine position.

What does it involve?

Based on your business requirements, target audience, and advertising budget, we will outline a mix of digital channels including SEO (Search Engine Optimization), PPC (Pay Per Click marketing), Social Media Marketing and Online PR.

Once a proper mix of digital channels have been outlined and identified that are right for your business, we will then fully analyse your existing web site. This would involve improving the site tags, content, and keyword densities to increase indexing rates whilst ensuring that your site complements not just the search engines’ search algorithms but also other digital marketing channels.

In addition, we will evaluate site usability and propose improvements to your sales process to help increase conversion rates that lead to the ultimate goal of increased sales.
Finally depending on the marketing channels that we help you choose, we’ll outline comprehensive strategies based on competitor analysis and industry research for SEO, PPC, Social Media and Online PR.

What does it cost?

Many other agencies charge a percentage of your online marketing spend, but this gives you unpredictable costs and a high cost of growth. At ABSEM, our pricing is a fixed cost based on the work we do for you and your unique requirements.

When we understand what you want to achieve, we can outline a program of ongoing activity and give you clear, fixed pricing so that your marketing costs are always predictable and reliable. Most importantly, we don’t lock you into long term contracts, so you can always see that you are getting value for money and move your marketing focus to our other online marketing channels if necessary.

How do I measure its effectiveness?

We measure our results by comparing the factors that are part of your unique service. For example, if Google Page Rank is your goal, that’s what we measure. If visitor numbers are your goal, we track site statistics.

Essentially, you can measure the effectiveness of the service that we deliver to you by looking at the factors that are important to you. As part of that service, we track those metrics and give you regular reports as we continuously monitor your website’s performance and make ongoing adjustments as necessary.

How quickly will I see a result?

This depends on the approach that we take and the marketing channel in question. We recommend a blend of channels to take advantage of each one’s unique characteristics and this then delivers both fast and long lasting results. Pay Per Click or PPC Management can generate results almost instantly, because advertisements are active as soon as we write and publish them. However it takes time to refine and test the advertisements for them to achieve their best results. Industry competitiveness, demand, your budget and our ongoing refinement and testing of advertisements can have an impact on the time that it takes for a PPC campaign to achieve its full effectiveness.

Search Engine Optimization or SEO Services take longer to generate results, but give longer lasting results depending on your industry, level of competition, demand, and the search volume of the keywords we are targeting for you. Our preferred strategy is to select keywords in two phases, short term and long term, to give us a starting point for ongoing optimization that gives you the long lasting results that are so important to maintain your competitive position.

Social Media Marketing is also a long term strategy, because it does take time for social networks to develop, for people to read and participate in online discussions and for word to spread through the social network.

Online PR is a long term strategy, because it takes some time to develop the right connections, & relationships with various PR networks, but once the user engagement, and relationships are set up, you can expect to see ongoing results from them.

We often develop a marketing plan that incorporates all Search Marketing Channels, so that you get both short term and long lasting results.