Structuring Your Account Incorrectly
The number one SEM mistake we see is businesses structuring their accounts incorrectly from the beginning, which means campaigns never get a fighting chance. A bad account structure costs your business time, money, and revenue. First of all, don’t use the SKAG model. However, there is no one true ideal structure. There are different ways to build your account based on your business in order to maximize returns. The best way to ensure success is to hire an expert to run your paid search campaigns for you from the beginning. This way, you avoid the rest of the costly SEM mistakes on this list.
2. Using Broad Match Instead of Exact Match
Another SEM mistake we see frequently is using traditional broad match as your only match type. Yes, the new Google Phrase Match uses AI to help ensure keyword relevancy. However, you don’t want to rely on it entirely. You will save yourself a lot of money and headaches by using exact match instead. Exact match has much higher relevancy than broad match.
3. Not Working on SEO Along with SEM
It is a huge, yet common, mistake to not perform SEO strategies as well as SEM campaigns. It is important to work on both SEO and SEM simultaneously. If you are only doing SEM campaigns for the quick volume, you will lose out on the long-term traffic that SEO attracts. You will need to spend less money on SEM over time if your SEO works well. Make sure to implement an SEO strategy for your website.