SEM (Search Engine Marketing)
TLDR;
Search engine marketing (SEM) is a popular marketing technique that has the purpose to increase a website’s visibility on search engine results pages. SEM usually involves paid advertising (PPC) and is a worldwide billion-dollar industry.
About Search Engine Marketing
Search engine marketing (SEM) is an online marketing strategy used to increase the visibility and reach of a website in search engine results pages (SERPs).
SEM includes Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click (PPC) and Social Media Marketing (SMM).
How SEM works
Search engine algorithms determine the order in which the results are shown to users by taking into consideration multiple factors (ex: location). Paid ads will always appear on top of the other results, or in some cases in the side of the page, thus having increased visibility and more chances of being clicked. The paid ads are of course correlated to the keyword the user typed in the search bar.
The most basic ads contain a headline, text body, a CTA and the link to the website.
An SEM campaign is usually set up by marketers through the following steps:
- An advertising medium is chosen
- Keyword research is done to determine the ones that are relevant for the website
- A location for the ad is chosen
- The copy is written
- The maximum CPC is calculated
- A bid is placed on the price for each click
Why Is SEM Important?
SEM is one of the most popular marketing techniques used nowadays, as the vast majority of new website visitors usually come from search engine queries.
The advantage of search engine marketing is that users are already showing interest in a specific subject/product when searching for it. So the ad will surely get to the right target, consisting of people who are already in the right state of mind to buy a certain product/service.
In search engine marketing, the advertiser only pays for the number of clicks on the website link and not for the number of times the ad was displayed in the results.
