Search Engine Marketing Basics

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is essentially the process of making your website visible on the major search engines, like Google, Yahoo! and MSN. This means that when a Web-user types a search term (query) relevant to your website into the search bar, your site appears toward the top of the search results.

What's all the Fuss About?

The number of website owners performing their own SEM, or employing the services of SEM agencies has grown exponentially in the last few years. 'SEM' and 'SEO' have become buzz words almost as widely used as 'weblog.' People spend vast amounts of money on SEM - with varying success.

Figures suggest that listings below the fourth or fifth position on a search engine's results deliver far less traffic, and that web-users rarely look past the first three pages of results; so for businesses that rely on Internet-generated leads, search engine marketing can be essential.

There are two basic elements to SEM - search engine optimisation (SEO), and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. While some webmasters contract to different highly specialised firms for SEO and PPC, many SEM practitioners advocate an integrated approach, so as to leverage knowledge gained from one part of a campaign for another. A PPC campaign produces a lot of data about the keywords and ad copy that get the best conversions, while examining natural search results provides data for PPC strategies, such as negative keyword matching.

First up, here are the essentials of SEO and PPC:

Search Engine Optimisation

SEO usually refers to the optimisation of a website so that it ranks well on a search engine's 'natural,' or 'organic' search results for desired keywords. That is, the regular results that are not paid for. This involves keeping abreast of the regular changes that search engines make to their ranking algorithms.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising

PPC is the major player in paid-for-results. Search engines display PPC ads on their results page - usually clearly separated in some way from the organic listings - as well as on a range of content sites. When a web-user clicks on the ad, the site owner is charged a small (or, for very popular keywords, multiple dollar) fee by the search engine. PPC ads have traditionally been text based, but image ad options are available, as well as pay-per-call.

Top 10 SEM Tips Little Known Advertising Facts