What is search engine marketing?

Search engine marketing (SEM) is the most powerful online customer acquisition strategy available to marketers today. This fact is recognised by more and more businesses who are diverting funds from online banner advertising into SEM because of the better ROI it delivers

Search engine marketing fits within the promotional mix of a marketing plan and is all about using Internet search engines and directories to deliver targeted traffic to websites. It's proven and it works.

Other terms you'll frequently hear used for search engine marketing are "search engine optimisation" (SEO), "search engine promotion," "search engine positioning" and "search engine placement".

Whilst these are valid terms, SEM has become increasingly complex and sophisticated. Today it involves much more than simply optimising page code.

Apart from search engine optimisation, other key aspects of SEM are the design and management of link building, pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, effective online copy writing, website usability and website visitor and ROI reporting.

This is why the term "search marketing" is frequently used by us. We believe that effective search engine marketing involves the careful integration of a range of online marketing techniques.

What Search Engine Marketing Is Not...

1 - Search engine marketing isn't just about getting high rankings in the search engines.

Yes, high rankings in search engines are essential so your site can be found. But search engine rankings by themselves are not the end goal. They're simply a necessary step to achieving it.

High rankings in search engines are worthless unless your website gets targeted traffic that you can convert into profitable customers. In this regard search engine rankings are like newspaper advertisements or billboards - their success is not measured by how many there are, but by the responses they generate.

2- Search engine marketing is not simply about driving increased traffic to your website from search engines.

It's relatively easy to get vast amounts of traffic to a website, but if traffic just clicks in and clicks out again what's the point? That's like having lots of foot traffic go through a store but few stopping to shop. Tyre kickers don't help your business. What does is getting more of the right sort of traffic Traffic that converts. In other words focus should be on traffic quality - not just quantity.

When done properly, SEM delivers quality targeted traffic to a website.

- Traffic actively searching for the products or services you offer.
- Traffic wanting to buy.

Exactly the sort of visitors you want visiting your website!

Achieving good rankings in key search engines is not an easy task, particularly for competitive search phrases. It requires a lot of time, effort and specialist knowledge to do it successfully.

For this reason and/or ignorance of its benefits, many website owners do not implement search engine marketing strategies to achieve visibility in search engine listings.

Search Engine Marketing UK Resource Centre has been developed and marketed by SiteVisibility. A UK based search engine marketing company that serves the whole of the UK, including: London, Brighton, Leeds, Manchester, Nottingham, Derby.