Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing, or SEM, is a set of Internet marketing strategies. These strategies focus on Website promotion by increasing the visibility and Web traffic of the Website in the search engine result pages.

Search engine marketing strategies include search engine optimization, paid placement, and paid inclusion.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization involves improving the performance of a Website by optimizing the structure, content and inbound links of the site to rank higher on natural Web searches.

Paid Search Engine Placement

Paid search engine placement allows advertisers to appear on the search engine results page immediately without waiting for natural SEO to work. These listings are typically separate from the standard search results. One type of placement listing is called Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. In this type of advertising, the advertiser bids for certain search words and phrases, which are relevant to the site and products offered. The search engine calculates the bid and other relevancy factors in publishing the results.

Paid Search Engine Inclusion

Paid inclusion allows advertisers to pay a fee to have their Web pages included within the standard search engine results.

Surveys indicate that spending on search engine marketing exceeded projections in 2007 and will continue healthy growth.

Preliminary findings of the 2007 State of the Market survey by the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO). This survey indicates that spending on search engine marketing exceeded projections in 2007 and will continue healthy growth.

This survey also found that the money for search marketing spending is coming increasing from the portion of budgets previously reserved for print magazine advertising, website development and other marketing functions. Marketers are shifting portions of their spending to follow consumers as they increasingly rely on search engines to find the products and services they need.

Other findings:

The North American SEM industry grew from $9.4 billion in 2006 to $12.2 billion in 2007, exceeding earlier projections of $11.5 billion for 2007.

North American SEM spending is now projected to grow to $25.2 billion in 2011, up significantly from the $18.6 billion forecast a year ago.

Paid placement captures 87.4% of 2007 spending; organic SEO, 10.5%; paid inclusion, .07%, and technology investment, 1.4%.