Search Engine Marketing (SEM) - An Overview

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the practice of achieving traffic to your website through search engines by methods including: Pay-Per-Click (PPC), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media Marketing (SMM), Blogging, Affiliate programs, Email, and link-building, to name a few.

Search Engine Marketing can be broken down into paid and non-paid methods. A good mixture of both is ideal, as it may take some time to acquire traffic through natural or organic SEO.

Non-paid or SEO includes the following methods:

• Web site optimization
• Blogging
• Link Building
• Social Media Marketing
• Directory inclusions

Paid methods include:

• Pay-Per-Click
• Pay-for-Performance
• Affiliate Programs
• Targeted Ad Placement
• Paid Placement Inclusions

A good SEM plan involves a solid strategy and approach, as well as identifying the results you wish to achieve with your SEM campaign. Are you looking for traffic, leads, sales, branding….all of these and more? In order to measure how successful your SEM campaign is, you must first determine your goals, and have a way to measure them. This, in turn, gives you a benchmark in which to figure out what works, and what doesn’t.

If you are attempting SEM without using a professional company or individual, choose a couple of the free methods to begin with, and as your budget allows, give PPC a shot. This should be enough to give you a start, and be able to test these methods on your site without becoming completely overwhelmed.

If I were to choose 2 methods to begin with, I would start with SEO on your website, and one of the 3 PPC programs )Google, Yahoo or MSN). After getting your feet wet, and seeing the results, you can then progressively add methods. Once this gets to be more time consuming than your business can handle, I strongly recommend hiring a professional. This will give you more time to focus on your business, and a better chance at being successful.