Search Engine Marketing – An Introduction

Full form of SEM is Search Engine Marketing. Search Engine Marketing is a marketing strategy to obtain maximum exposure and visibility among people. This is achieved by Search Engine Optimization, PPC campaigns, paid listings etc.

SEM creates traffic for any website by free SEO efforts and by paid advertisements.

There are two types of search from advertiser’s point of view –

1. Organic Search
2. Paid Search

Organic Search includes those results which come naturally on the page of a search engine, when users enter search query in the text box of a search engine. These results are obtained by SEO technique.

Paid Search includes those results which are displayed on the top or right of the natural results. This is achieved by paying some amount of money. These results are generally achieved by SEM.

A website gains profit and visibility by SEM technique, which includes SEO and paid advertisements, paid inclusion, contextual advertising etc. SEM is a blend of SEO, paid advertisements, paid inclusions and social media.

Search Engine compares the keywords submitted by advertisers describing the type of their products or a service with the search queries entered by user then it returns the relevant results.

A search engine uses online software to let the advertiser manage the advertisements like

1. Google Adwords – It determines the placement of the advertisement based on the quality score and bid of the advertisement.

2. Yahoo Search Marketing – It places the ad by using the combination of the bid and quality index of the advertisement.