Online advertising can be an incredible tool for small business owners. In this presentation, we'll go over important search engine marketing lingo, the competitive landscape and walk you through Google AdWords, the Yahoo Bing Network, Yelp Ads and more. By the time you're finished, you'll feel much more comfortable launching a campaign.

1. SEM and Paid Online Marketing
From the Small Business
Growth Strategies Series
Presented by

2. Introduction
How do you find anything you want?
You search for it!
And so does everyone else.

3. Introduction
So how do you reach huge audiences?
Pay to show up more frequently in
relevant search results!

4. Introduction
This is referred to as Search
Engine Marketing, or:
SEM

5. Introduction
In addition to SEM, we’ll introduce
you to some alternative advertising
methods that can help your small
business stand out.

6. SEM Lingo

7. Search Engine Optimization
(SEO)
The practice of strategically organizing your
website to increase the chances of it
showing up in search results. SEO is just
one component of SEM.

8. Analytics
The information gathered by tracking
activity on a website such as the number of
visitors, the average amount of time spent
on the website and the percentage of
visitors that turn into paying customers.

9. Keywords
Words entered into a search engine to let it know
what you’re looking for. Rates for designing targeted
campaigns around specific keywords depend on
how often they’re searched and the search engine
results pages (SERPs) that they typically end up on.

10. Search Engine Result Pages
(SERPs)
Pages of results that appear when you
enter a search into a search engine.

11. Algorithms
Procedures of calculations that determine how
pages appear on SERPs. Each search engine
has its own algorithm.

12. Content Networks
Groups of websites that host ads in addition to
them showing up in Google search. In most cases,
content networks allow for contextual advertising by
pairing relevant content with relevant ads.

13. Cost-Per-Click (CPC)
Also known as Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising.
Different names for the same model where the
advertiser pays the search engine an agreed upon
amount of money for every click on an ad. The
CPC / PPC model is the most common.

14. Cost-Per-Thousand (CPM)
Alternative advertising model where instead of
paying per click, the advertiser pays the search
engine an agreed upon amount of money for every
thousand impressions.

15. Impressions
Not the same as views.
Each time an ad is loaded on a page being
viewed by a unique visitor, that is an
impression, whether or not they look at it.

16. Click-Through Rates (CTR)
Measured by dividing the number of impressions by
the number of clicks on an ad. For example, an ad
with 100 impressions and 5 clicks would have a
CTR of 5 percent.

17. Conversions
Reached every time your marketing goal is met.
Imagine your goal is to convert new visitors to
customers. Each time a new visitor makes a
purchase, that’s a conversion. However, the
term conversion is not exclusive to sales.

18. Quality Scores
Used to measure how relevant ads are to particular
search queries. Higher quality scores lead to better
positioning and lower cost-per-click.

19. Paid Marketing on Major
Search Engines

21. Major Players
Google, Bing and Yahoo are the three big
names in the search engine space.

22. Major Players
Microsoft’s Bing search engine and
Yahoo are still in a partnership, referred
to as the Yahoo Bing Network.
Still, Google is the dominant force.

23. Major Players

24. Google AdWords

25. AdWords
As Jennifer Mesenbrink of Motorola’s digital and
content strategy division jokingly said recently, “If
you build it…you may still need Google AdWords.”

26. AdWords
As the largest online advertiser in the world,
Google AdWords provides the highest numbers of
impressions and click-through rates.

27. AdWords
AdWords works by matching relevant searches
with relevant advertisements.
For example, I did a quick search for
“smartphone” to show where the ads appear.

28. !

29. AdWords
Most people have heard of AdWords but don’t
know what it looks like.
Here are the steps you go through to set up an
AdWords account…

32. !

33. AdWords
Targeted ads are especially relevant to local
businesses and we recommend using them. They
allow you to select specific areas, ranging in size
from a country to an area code.

34. AdWords
This is what the Locations section looks
like once you open it up…

35. !

36. AdWords
And this is what it looks like when you search for a
specific area code. For this example, I used 11231,
which would give me a reach of 38,000. If I wanted
a larger audience, I could choose all of Brooklyn or
all of New York.

37. !

38. AdWords
We recommend keeping your budget below $10 a
day, at least until you get the hang of it.

39. Google Partners
If you want the benefits of AdWords, but would
prefer someone else to handle the responsibilities
on your behalf, you can find over 5,000 certified
experts on Google Partners.

40. AdWords Express
Google knows that not every small business owner
has the time or resources to devote to a full-fledged
AdWords campaign. That’s why they offer
AdWords Express. Express was designed specifically
for first-time advertisers and small business owners
who want to quickly set up targeted local ads.

41. Yahoo Bing
Network

42. Yahoo Bing Network
There aren’t as many advertisers on the Yahoo Bing
Network as there are on Google AdWords, making it
less competitive. Simple logic will tell you that less
competition increases your chances of showing up
in results

43. Yahoo Bing Network
If you’ve already launched an AdWords campaign
and would like to use the same information on the
Yahoo Bing Network, it can easily be transferred.

44. Yelp Ads

45. Yelp Ads
Search engines don’t own the whole world of paid
online marketing. Yelp, which we covered in a past
newsletter, also offers ads that can be valuable to
local businesses.

46. Yelp Ads
Once you’re on the Yelp Ads page, most of our
readers will probably want to choose the Local
Business Owner option.

47. !

48. Yelp Ads
In addition to removing competitor ads, benefits include:
• Your business page is added to your competitors page
(presumably competitors who aren’t also using Yelp Ads)
• High-quality one minute video showcasing your business
• Unlimited photos
• Call to action button such as “print coupon”
• Access to Yelp support staff

49. Yelp Ads
Although it can vary, here is how the pricing usually works:
• $300/mo – includes 500 targeted ads per month
• $540/mo – includes 1200 targeted ads per month
• $825/mo – includes 2100 targeted ads per month
• $1100/mo – includes 3000 targeted ads per month

50. Yelp Ads
To show you an example of a Yelp Ad, I
searched for a florist in my
neighborhood, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. It
looks like Ode à la Rose in Chelsea
purchased some ad space on Yelp.

51. !

52. YP Ads

53. YP Ads
Although it’s not quite as popular as Yelp, YP.com
(Yellow Pages) also offers locally targeted ads that
can help your business stand out. YP’s local search
network includes Yahoo Local, City Search and over
three hundred more local search websites.

54. YP Ads
According to its website, the YP network
receives over two billion annual searches from
over 60 million unique visitors. The YP plans are
much more affordable Yelp, with plans starting
at just $59 per month.

55. Conclusion

56. Conclusion
Coming up with good SEO and SEM strategies takes
time and patience.
If you’re interested in learning more about it, there are
infinite resources available online.
Now that you’re familiar with SEM lingo you’ll feel
more comfortable taking it on.

57. Conclusion
As always, we hope this information has been
valuable and that this series is helping your
small business grow.
If you’d like suggestions for more specific
resources or have any questions, don’t hesitate
to shoot us an email.

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59. About Acuity Scheduling
Acuity Scheduling is an online scheduling platform that
saves thousands of small businesses time by allowing their
customers to book appointments online, on their own time,
at any time, from anywhere in the world. For more
information about services and pricing, visit
AcuityScheduling.com.