SEO & SEM FAQs

Question 1

What is CPC?

Answer

CPC is an acronym for cost-per-click, which is the amount you as a company are paying per visitor who clicks on your page. These paid marketing campaigns are referred to as “PPC campaigns” also known as “Pay-per-click” Campaign. With PPC ads, several factors are taken into account before finally getting to the right price-per-click. Things like your website quality score, the maximum amount you (as a company) are willing to bid, and your ad rank in comparison to competitors with the same content and keywords as you are all huge factors that come into play for your cost-per-click campaign.

Question 2

What is SEO?

Answer

SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization” or; In easier words, it's the method of enhancing the website's exposure for related searches. The more accessible you are, the more people are drawn to your business. The way these search engines work is by using bots. These bots are able to gather all the information across the web to present it to the user on google (or any other search engine). Once the bots gather all the relevant information, an algorithm sorts out the data according to rankings to present in correct order to the user. SEO marketing essentially gives the user an easy, user-friendly experience to find what they are looking for. This will lead to an increase in conversions for the business.

Question 3

What does SEM stand for?

Answer

SEM, search engine marketing, is what really sets you apart from your competitors and helps encourage growth of your business. Search engine marketing is using paid ads to spread businesses ads across platforms and pages that users engage with based off of their previous searches. Advertisers will use services that provide Ad-bidding to bid on pay-per-click keywords. The highest paying bids will be at the top of the search results; ultimately leading to more conversions and a more successful business. Even though the CPC bids play a huge part in the success of your business, it’s definitely not the only factor that gets you to the high ranking you want to be in. Quality score is the other highly valued factor that will help increase your ad ranking as well as potentially lower your CPC. “Quality Score” is a metric used to determine how relatable your company’s ad is to a user’s search. The higher the quality score, the better!

Question 4

What is a negative keyword?

Answer

Negative keywords are the search terms that you don’t want to be correlated to your website. Any term that you put down as a “negative keyword”, will most likely not be generating traffic- as that is the point of having negative key words. Negative Keywords help eliminate users who aren’t looking for something specifically related to your site (or some content that your site may provide).
For example, if you have a pizza website, but do not offer plant-based meat options, you may want to put “Plant-Based” Pizza as a negative key word so that you aren’t directing users looking for plant-based pizza to your website.

Question 5

How can you improve CTR in Google Ads?

Answer

CTR is short for “Click Through Rate” in the digital data world. There are several ways a business or company can improve this, but the main and most important one is improving ad copy. Ad copy is the block of text on or under an ad that highlights the most relevant benefits a customer might have by purchasing that specific service or product. Relevant ad copy that matches the keyword and landing page experience can help increase CTR and conversions. Also, make sure you have a strong “call to action” in your headlines and descriptions - like “Sign Up Today” or “Request Proposal”. If you have really good ad copy you will improve your click through rate.

Question 6

How can you lower CPC in Google Ads?

Answer

CPC stands for “Cost Per Click.” There are a few ways to lower CPC. The keyword’s quality score is a huge factor in the price you pay per click. If your quality score is low then your cost per click will be higher than your competitors who may have a higher quality score. Your quality score is the metric Google assigns based on performance. If you have strong metrics, Google knows you are delivering the user a quality experience. Another way to lower CPC would be to manage your bids regularly. By making adjustments to bids and position that you gain to be displayed, you can reduce your CPC. Data Bid Machine has technology that can adjust the bids for you on a daily basis to stay competitive and get you the best price for the position – first page, top of page, or top position.

Question 7

What is a Bounce Rate?

Answer

In simple terms bounce rate is when a customer lands on your website and immediately leaves without proceeding onto other pages or taking action while on the site. Higher bounce rate usually equates to lower conversions which is not good news in most cases. Having a high bounce rate and low conversions ultimately lowers your sites quality score, ranking, and increases cost per click. While having a lower bounce rate shows that you have a great user experience and you will see more conversions, higher quality score, and lower CPC.