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SEM by eGumball
Paid search run as one campaign - PPC, landing pages, and conversions, not just traffic.
What SEM Actually Means
SEM, or search engine marketing, is the use of paid advertising to appear in search results. Google Ads is the main example of an SEM product.The term is also used more broadly, for the whole of a search programme rather than just the paid half. That is closer to how we use it here, and it is the more useful definition, for a reason worth explaining.
SEM, SEO, PPC - The Terms Untangled
These three get used interchangeably and they should not be.SEO earns a position through the condition and content of your website. It takes months and keeps working afterwards. See SEO.
PPC is a pricing model, not a service. It means you pay each time someone clicks your ad.
SEM is the wider discipline: the paid campaigns, the pages they point at, the tracking that shows which clicks became customers, and the coordination of all of it with the organic side.
A search engine optimizer concentrates first and foremost on the website and its rankings. A competent search engine marketer looks at the bigger picture.
Why Running Them Separately Costs More
This is the argument for treating search as one campaign rather than three invoices.Paid campaigns produce something organic work cannot buy: hard evidence of which exact phrases produce paying customers, usually within weeks. That evidence should be steering the SEO work and the profile categories.
When the two are handled by unconnected teams, the waste is predictable. Ads keep bidding on terms the website could rank for at no cost per click. The website keeps chasing terms the ad data already proved never convert. Both teams report success on their own metrics while the business pays twice for the same customer.
Coordinating them is not a premium service. It is the part that stops you overpaying.
What We Coordinate
Paid search campaigns. Keyword research, campaign structure, negative keyword lists, and ongoing optimization. Handled as Google Ads management.
Landing pages. Where each campaign sends its traffic, and what that page has to do when the visitor arrives. Google scores how well the destination matches the search, so a better match lowers your cost per click as well as converting more people.
Conversion tracking. Which clicks turned into calls, forms and customers. Without this, optimization is guesswork.
Local profile work. Google Business Profile optimization and Google Maps marketing, so the free map placement is working alongside the paid results rather than being ignored.
Organic search. SEO on the website, directed by what the paid data proves.
Traffic Is Not the Objective
SEM is not about getting as many visitors as possible. It is about turning those visitors into paying customers.A campaign that doubles your clicks and produces the same number of calls has cost you money, not made it. That is why the landing page and the tracking matter as much as the bidding, and why we report on conversions rather than on traffic.
What Does It Cost?
Two separate costs. Your ad spend goes to Google - you set it and you control it. Our management fee covers running the campaign.Cost per click varies enormously by industry and location, so we look at your market before quoting rather than publishing a number that would be wrong for most businesses.
Why eGumball
We have worked in local search since September 2007, and we are a Google Partner for sponsored ads.We employ teams specializing in each part of local online promotion rather than asking one person to cover all of them. No matter how many platforms you make part of your campaign, each is handled by people who work on that platform daily.
We will also tell you when paid search is not the right spend. For many local businesses the map produces more, and costs nothing per click once the work is done.