What is Search Engine Marketing ?

This is a really good question for those people who are just starting out on their journey into the world of internet marketing. It always helps to understand what it is you are doing, and why you are doing it.

Search Engine Marketing, aka SEM, is a form of internet marketing that seeks to promote any given website by increasing its visibility with the search engines in their results pages through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion. The New York Times has defined SEM as ‘the practice of buying paid search listings’.

Let us go back a minute and go over some of the types of paid placement. Forms of paid payment include "Pay Per Click" and "Cost Per Click". "Pay Per Click" or PPC is a paid placement is an internet advertising model that is used on websites.

 This is where advertisers pay the host of the site only when their ad has been clicked on. With a search engine, advertisers generally bid on keyword phrases relevant to the market they are trying to target. Content sites, however, very commonly charge fixed prices per click rather than using a bidding system.

There are many PPC providers out there. The three largest ones that everyone knows are Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter. Websites that use PPC ads will display an advertisement when a keyword query matches an advertiser’s keyword list, or when a content site displays any relevant content. These advertisements are called "sponsored links" or "sponsored ads". They appear adjacent to or above any organic results on search engine results pages. The PPC model is really open to all kinds of abuse through what is called click fraud. Google and others have implemented automated systems to guard against abuse such as this from competitors and corrupt web developers.

"Cost Per Click" or CPC is the amount of money that advertisers pay a search engine and any other internet publisher for a single click on the ad that brings anyone visitor to the site it is linked to. All three of these providers operate under the bid-based model. CPC varies in costs, depending on the search engine and the level of competition for any given keywords.

Did you know that in 2008, North American advertisers spend 13.5 million of US dollars on search engine marketing? That is a whole lot of money spent on advertising on the internet. It makes you wonder how all of it is being seen by potential customers.

I hope that this clears up the subject of search engine marketing a wee bit for you. By all means, do your research and find out as much information as you can before you begin your advertising campaigns.