Search Engine Marketing or SEM is a widely used term for a form of Internet marketing that utilizes an array of online marketing strategies to promote a website, improve its ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs), and increase its traffic and conversions. These strategies, inter alia, include search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click advertising (PPC), paid ad placements etc.

SEM predominantly (though not invariably) combines search engine optimization (SEO) which pulls in traffic (website visitors) from organic (natural) searches, and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising which helps to draw in qualified traffic (people who are already searching for the product category being promoted by the website) through sponsored ads (or sponsored links) put up by search engines (against payment per click) on the top and right-hand side of the SERP.

Combining SEO and PPC techniques in SEM helps to drive traffic to the website as they focus on different segments of potential visitors and have different types of strengths. SEO has strengths where PPC does not, and vice versa. PPC, for instance, generates traffic faster (sometimes in hours) than SEO (which may require 3 – 15 months) whereas the cost per visitor is much lower with SEO than with PPC. SEO helps to generate higher volume of low-conversion traffic (good for increasing site visibility) while PPC attracts more qualified (higher conversion potential) but lower-volume traffic and so on.

The trick to any successful SEM campaign is to optimize the site for both SEO and PPC separately and to have a judicious mix of the two strategies depending on the target market and the website goals.

Search Engine Optimisation or SEO is the ongoing process of making a website (and its content) relevant for searches carried out by people surfing the net; and facilitating search engines to display (rank) the site high up in the search results page. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of website traffic from ‘natural’ or ‘organic’ searches by tweaking various elements (such as keywords, anchor text in metatags of web pages, the type of coding etc)  of the website to optimize it.

SEO includes two distinct and important aspects which need to be addressed if the optimization is to be successful. The first is the technical aspect (such as keyword research, site architecture, use of keywords in title and metatags, site navigation for web spiders, incorporation of site map and directory, building links etc). These technical features make it easier for search engines (their web spiders or web crawlers) to find and index a site for the appropriate keywords. The second aspect relates to marketing-focused tasks to make a site more appealing to users (content, layout, images, easy navigation for visitors, function tabs or buttons e.g. ‘add-to favorites’, ‘refer-a-friend’, ‘quick enquiry’ etc, that are easy to access and operate and so on).

SEO strategies can be learned but need a lot of hard work, dedication and a will to experiment. It would be worthwhile to you to check out some guides on the subject. If you plan on learning this SUPER important Traffic Getting Strategy, check out some of my beginner guides here, you can start with entering your name and email in the box to the right to Receive - “The 7 Brutal Certainties Of Search Engine Optimization” – A Mini Guide To the World Of SEO

Optimize it!