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Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Marketing, or SEM as it is known in the industry, is a type of marketing online that promotes websites by increasing a website’s (and thus a company’s) visibility in Search Engine results pages, or SERPs. According to SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization, some of the varying types of SEM include paid placement, paid inclusion, and SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. SEM has also been defined as the practice of paying for listings on other web properties with the ultimate goal being improved search listing results on SERPS.

Paid Placement

Paid placement normally refers to Pay Per Click (PPC), which is an advertising model based on payment being made to the advertiser for every click or number of clicks made on the advertisement by users/consumers of a website. Advertisers bid on keywords and groups of keywords for which the advertisers want to be displayed for based on the search terms they believe their target market will search for.

Pay Per Click ads can appear on content network websites, and the ad networks like Yahoo!, Google AdSense, and other similar ad networks’ provide relevant ads on page by matching the ads to the content on the page where the ads appear. Sponsored links, where an advertiser’s ad is displayed beside or above the natural or ‘organic’ results on SERPs, are usually more prominent that the other ads displayed, as they are usually highlighted or made to stick out more in some form or fashion.

There are currently three dominant companies in the online ad business, including Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and Microsoft adCenter, all of which have done extremely well, though Google is by far the most dominant superstar of the group.

Should you use a Professional to run your Google, Yahoo!, or Microsoft adCenter Campaign?
While you can probably figure the whole ad business yourself after a good many training sessions and continued learning, it’s much easier to let the pros handle it. It takes a good long time to understand the nuances of Search Engine Marketing, but the main issue is time. Managing campaigns means managing money, and getting the maximum ROI on your spend is key to a thriving business online. SEM management is sort of like the stock market: anyone can dive in and throw money around, but only a few are going to know what they’re doing and proving it through their returns. It’s also probably best to take it slow in the beginning, so you give yourself a chance to learn the ropes and test what works and what doesn’t.

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