Search engine marketing: a guide for pros
What customers ask, how to win the job, and what to put on your profile.
Offering search engine marketing
You set up and manage paid search ads for clients, from keyword research and ad copy to landing pages, bids and reporting. Your value is ads that reach the right searchers, clear tracking and honest reports on what the spend produced.
What customers ask
- How many customers will this bring in?
- Who controls the ad account?
- How much of my budget will be wasted on clicks that do not convert?
- Can you track phone calls and form fills from the ads?
- How often will you change the bids and the ads?
How to win the job
- On the first call, ask for the services, the service area, the target customers, the current account access, the tracking in place and the monthly budget, then confirm them in writing.
- Run a keyword and search term review before setting bids, and show the client the groups you plan to launch with and the terms you will exclude.
- Write ad copy that matches the landing page, and check each claim against the client's own proof before the ad goes live.
- Set up call and form tracking before the first click, and test it with a real call and form submission.
- Send a monthly report with the spend, the calls, the forms, the cost per action and the changes made, with the reason for each change.
- Keep the account in the client's name, with the client holding the owner access, and state that in the quote.
What to put on your profile
- List the platforms you manage ad accounts on, and the industries you have worked in, in general terms.
- Describe your tracking and reporting method in plain steps.
- Name the landing page types you build, such as service pages or lead forms.
Follow-up that helps the customer
- Schedule a review after the first full month of data to decide which campaigns to keep.
- Offer a seasonal plan for the times of year when the client's searches rise or fall.
- Suggest a landing page test when the account has enough traffic to show a difference.
Licenses and permits
Search engine marketing is usually not licensed. Keep your business registration current, and follow the advertising rules of each platform and any rules that apply to the client's industry, such as regulated products or services; check your state or local rules for any registration your work requires.
Questions
Do I need a certification to manage search ads?
Usually not by law. Platforms offer certifications that clients often ask about, so list any you hold and keep them current.
What if a client wants to use claims the platform does not allow?
Explain the platform rule in writing and suggest wording that meets it. Do not submit ads that break the platform's policies.
How do I handle a client who wants results in a set time?
Explain that search results depend on the market and the data. Agree on the test length and the measures, and put the review dates in the agreement.
Pro reviewers
Pros who offer search engine marketing remotely can improve this guide, like Wikipedia. We check every edit before it goes live. Every approved edit is credited in the edit history and on the pro's profile.
Edit history
- Oct 29, 2026: Drafted by infinibell to our content guidelines.
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