Are you planning to fix your career in the field of Search Engine Marketing (SEM)? And you are stuck where and how to start? If the answer for the above question is yeas from your side, then you have landed into the right destination. Here, I will explain how you can become an SEM specialist in detail.
What is SEM?
Search Engine Marketing is the practice of marketing a business using paid advertisements which appears in the search engine result page. SEM is a blooming field and here the advertisers bid on keywords that the users of the search engine like Google and Bing may enter when they search for some keywords.
| As per the Search Engine Journal, paid search spending has increased 10% each year. |
From the above insight, it’s very obvious that there is a huge number of job openings for SEM specialist every year.
Who is an SEM specialist?
Search Engine Marketing specialist are those who work for the organizations to make sure that when the target customers search for relevant content, their website should rank at the top in the search result.
| More than 85% of the retailers said that search marketing which includes SEO and paid was the most efficient way to grab the customer traffic to their website. |
So, it’s very clear that an organization needs an SEM specialist to increase the traffic to their website.
Another major work of the SEM paid specialist is that they acquire the opportunity to put their ads in front of the customers who are ready to purchase at the precise moment.
As a candidate who aspires to become an SEM specialist, you should know that 19% of brand marketers expect to significantly increase their paid search investment by these type of digital marketing agency.
The skillset required for an SEM specialist role:
The following are the skills required to become an SEM specialist.
- You should be a Tech Savvy:
As an SEM specialist, you should have an understanding of HTML, CSS and basic web designing. Additionally, you should also have a piece of strong knowledge about how website and search engine ranking works.
- Organizational skills:
You may have to work in many campaigns at a time. You will have to work on multiple projects simultaneously. An SEM specialist should be able to organize the work according to the priority of the projects come in is the most crucial thing to be handled.
- SEO:
You can’t perform SEM without SEO (Search Engine Marketing). As an SEM specialist, it is very mandatory to know how the search engine ranking works. An SEM specialist must know how the organic ranking happens, how to optimize the keywords, and how the content impacts the page rankings. With these understandings, he should be able to bring their page’s rank at the top.
- Pay Per Click(PPC):
PPC is a model of internet marketing where the advertiser pays a certain fee each time their ads are clicked. In precise, you can say that it is a process of buying visits or traffic to your site instead of attempting to bring the traffic organically. To be a successful SEM specialist, one should know how to use PPC advertising with SEO.
- Writing Knowledge:
Don’t Panic. You are not going to curate the content for the website. But you as an SEM specialist should be able to create content in an emergency situation. To make yourself withstand in this career, you should be able to write a powerful ad copy, create content, or white papers.
- Excellent Communication Skills:
As a part of your role, you are responsible to communicate with various players in the team like web designers, content managers, writers, and also clients. You are expected to have strong communication skills to be able to communicate with them whenever it is necessary. The communication can be both verbally or non-verbally through emails or messenger applications.
- Statistics, Data & Analysis:
To study and analyze the web traffic of the organization, it is very crucial to have an analytical mind. An SEM specialist should be able to identify what drives web traffic and what increases the bounce rate and work accordingly with the help of digital marketing services.
