What Is Search Engine Marketing?

"SEM", or Search engine marketing, is a type of marketing that focuses on generating a high ranking on the Internet search engine results pages ("SERPs") of the major search engines. Search engine marketing – also known simply as "search marketing" – includes search engine optimization (SEO) on the one hand, and various kinds of paid search engine marketing including "pay-per-click", "paid inclusion" and "paid placement" on the other.

A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help users find information stored on the Internet. Essentially, search engines were built to help minimize the amount of time required to locate information. Nowadays, they are the main tool used by Internet users to find the information they want. Consequently, search engines are a major source of web traffic for many websites. Moreover, because search engine users tend not to look beyond the first few pages of results, the higher the ranking achieved by your website, the more search engine traffic it is likely to receive.

Search engine optimization is the process of increasing your search engine ranking for specific keywords. In other words, if you know that many of your prospective customers tend to search for your products and services using particular keywords, you want your site to be highly ranked in the SERPs for those keywords. In general, to achieve a high ranking, you need your website to be perceived by the search engines as being highly "relevant" for those keywords. Although the algorithms used by search engines are a carefully guarded secret, it is generally believed that this involves designing your website in a certain way, as well as attracting "back links" from other relevant ("authority") sites.

While achieving a high ranking in the SERPs via search engine optimization can take time and effort, it doesn't take much time to get a high ranking in the paid listings… if you're willing to pay! Essentially, you can have your site or ad appear high on the paid listings in return for a fee. Pay-per-click advertising, for example, is where the search engines display a short ad for your website on the right-hand side of the SERPs in return for a fee. The amount of this fee will depend on how popular are the keywords you're targeting. Fees can range from $0.05, to $5 to $50 per click!

Paid inclusion programs are programs where, in exchange for a fee, a search engine will guarantee the inclusion of your website listing. The downside of these programs is that they cannot guarantee that the pages will rank high for certain keyword searches. This is in contrast to paid placement programs, which do guarantee top listings if you pay a high enough fee. Paid placement can be particularly expensive. Both paid placement and paid inclusion typically involve a flat fee.

While there is a cost involved in either search engine optimization or paid search, both can be very cost effective compared to other means of advertising and marketing. It is generally wise for anyone with a website to consider pursuing some form of search engine marketing.

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