4 Search Engine Marketing Techniques for Small Retail Businesses

Want to rank at the top of search results? Sometimes you have to pay to play. Search engine marketing (SEM) is the practice of displaying paid ads on serps—namely Google—in order to draw more online traffic and customers.

But as a small retail store owner, it’s possible you’ll not have the funds or technical know-how to run expensive, complicated paid ads. That’s why it’s so vital to optimize the budget you do have and implement proven strategies to get the best return on your ad spend.

In this guide, I present modern and cost-effective techniques that may provide help to run more profitable SEM campaigns and achieve higher results for your small retail business.

1. Implementing geographic targeting

The effectiveness of an SEM campaign largely depends on targeting—whether your ads reach the right prospects in the right geographic area. Implementing geo-specific targeting lets you focus your promoting efforts on the people probably to grow to be actual customers.

First, determine the locations you should cover. These must be areas where your potential customers are probably to be. These might be specific neighborhoods, cities, or regions, whether near your brick-and-mortar store or in areas where you offer delivery services.

Then, log in to your ad account and select the campaign you should geo-target. In Google Ads, you possibly can go to the “Settings” tab and see the “Locations” section. Here, you possibly can add specific locations to focus on, similar to a city name, postal code, or radius to a store address.

Use your goal locations as keywords in your ad text. For example, if you’re targeting Denver, Colorado, you may use terms like “Denver boutique” or “women’s clothing downtown Denver” in your headline or ad description. Monitor your ad analytics to evaluate how many clicks, calls, or conversions your targeted ads are generating, then refine your strategy accordingly.

2. Reduce your ad spend by adding negative keywords

Negative keywords are used to stop your ads from showing up in search results for terms that are unrelated to your enterprise. For example, if you own a small retail store that sells high-end home decor, you possibly can add “DIY” or “budget” as negative keywords to avoid attracting bargain shoppers or DIYers.

To discover negative keywords, review past campaigns to see if any irrelevant keywords have triggered your ads. Additionally, brainstorm any common terms that don’t apply to your products or business.

Here’s methods to add negative keywords to your Google ad campaign:

1. Log in to your Google Ads account.

2. Select the campaign or ad group you should add negative keywords to.

3. In the left menu, click “Keywords” and then select “Negative Keywords.”

4. Click the “+” button so as to add recent negative keywords. You can enter individual keywords or upload a list.

5. Once you have added your chosen negative keywords, click “Save” to use them to your campaign.

Negative keywords filter out low-intent or non-converting traffic. This results in higher conversion rates and higher ROI.

3. Increase Relevance with Ad Grouping and Bundling

In SEM, clustering and grouping is the strategy of organizing keywords, ads, and landing pages into groups based on similar topics, products, or services. This ensures that ads are closely related to the interests (i.e. search queries) of your target market. Clustering and grouping can reduce promoting costs, improve Ad Quality Score and increase your conversion rate.

Start by identifying keywords that are closely related to each other. For example, if you own a dress boutique, you possibly can create separate clusters for “formal dresses,” “casual dresses,” “summer dresses,” and so on. Each cluster should contain keywords that are specific to that category.

Ad groups can then be used to store clusters of related keywords and the ads that concentrate on them. Using the same example as above, you might create separate ad groups for Dresses, Skirts, or Formal Wear. For each ad group, you’ll write customized ad copy that specifically addresses the keywords in that group.

Grouping ensures that your ads are matched to the most relevant search queries and the right kinds of customers, based on their interests. Grouping increases ad relevance, which may lower your cost-per-click (CPC) and increase your ROI.

4. Increase your online sales with Google Shopping ads

Google Shopping Ads are unique ads created using product data directly from your Google Merchant Center account. They display your products directly in search results, resulting in more online sales, in addition to local traffic and in-store sales.

Here’s methods to arrange Google Shopping ads:

1. Create (*4*)Google Shopping Center account. You will need to supply your enterprise details, confirm your website, and arrange tax and shipping information.

2. Set up your product feed. This includes adding detailed product information, including titles, descriptions, prices, images, and availability.

3. Submit your product feed to Google Merchant Center. You can do this manually or through automated methods similar to scheduled downloads or APIs.

4. Link your Google Merchant Center and Google Ads accounts. In Google Merchant Center, go to the “Linking accounts” section.

5. Sign in to your Google Ads account and create a recent campaign. Click the “+ New Campaign” button, select “Sales” or “Leads” as the campaign objective, and then select “Shopping” as the campaign type.

6. Create ad groups, select the products you should promote, and update your campaign settings (campaign name, budget, bidding strategy, keywords, goal locations, etc.)

Shopping ads can appear in Google paid search results, Google Play, Google Maps, and the Shopping tab, helping your enterprise be discovered by more customers in more places!

With a little creativity and sophistication, you possibly can generate more business for your small retail store with SEM. Adopt these modern strategies to extend your visibility, optimize your ad spend, and attract more targeted traffic.