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Search engine marketing, (SEM), is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion.[1] Search engine optimization (SEO) "optimizes" website content to achieve a higher ranking in search results, for example, by incorporating specific keywords or links associated with the website. [2] Depending on the context, SEM can be an umbrella term for various means of marketing a website including SEO, or it may contrast with SEO, focusing on just paid components.[3]

Market structure

In 2008, North American advertisers spent US$13.5 billion on search engine marketing. The largest SEM vendors are Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter.[1] As of 2006, SEM was growing much faster than traditional advertising and even other channels of online marketing.[4] Because of the complex technology, a secondary "search marketing agency" market has evolved. Some marketers have difficulty understanding the intricacies of search engine marketing and choose to rely on third party agencies to manage their search marketing.

History

As the number of sites on the Web increased in the mid-to-late 90s, search engines started appearing to help people find information quickly. Search engines developed business models to finance their services, such as pay per click programs offered by Open Text[5] in 1996 and then Goto.com[6] in 1998. Goto.com later changed its name[7] to Overture in 2001, and was purchased by Yahoo! in 2003, and now offers paid search opportunities for advertisers through Yahoo! Search Marketing. Google also began to offer advertisements on search results pages in 2000 through the Google AdWords program. By 2007, pay-per-click programs proved to be primary money-makers[8] for search engines. In a market dominated by Google, in 2009 Yahoo! and Microsoft announced the intention to forge an alliance. The Yahoo! & Microsoft Search Alliance eventually received approval from regulators in the US and Europe in February 2010.[9]

Search engine optimization consultants expanded their offerings to help businesses learn about and use the advertising opportunities offered by search engines, and new agencies focusing primarily upon marketing and advertising through search engines emerged. The term "Search Engine Marketing" was proposed by Danny Sullivan in 2001[10] to cover the spectrum of activities involved in performing SEO, managing paid listings at the search engines, submitting sites to directories, and developing online marketing strategies for businesses, organizations, and individuals.

Distinguished from SEO

SEM is an adjunct SEO. SEM uses ad words,[11] pay per call (particularly beneficial for local providers as it enables potential consumers to get in touch directly to a company with one click), article submissions, advertising and making sure SEO has been done. A keyword analysis is performed for both SEO and SEM, but not necessarily at the same time. SEM and SEO both need to be monitored and updated frequently to reflect changing usage.

In some contexts the term SEM is used exclusively to meanPay per click advertising,[3] particularly in the commercial advertising and marketing communities which have a vested interest in this narrow definition. Such usage excludes the wider search marketing community that is engaged in other forms of SEM such as Search Engine Optimization and Search Retargeting.

Another part of SEM is Social Media Marketing (SMM). SMM is a type of marketing that involves exploiting social media to influence consumers that one company’s products and/or services are valuable.[12] Some of the latest theoretical advances include Search Engine Marketing Management (SEMM). SEMM relates to activities including SEO but focuses on return on investment (ROI) management instead of relevant traffic building (as is the case of mainstream SEO). SEMM also integrates organic SEO, trying to achieve top ranking without using paid means of achieving top in search engines, and PayPerClick SEO. For example some of the attention is placed on the web page layout design and how content and information is displayed to the website visitor.

Ethical questions

Paid search advertising has not been without controversy, and the issue of how search engines present advertising on their search result pages has been the target of a series of studies and reports[13][14][15] by Consumer Reports WebWatch. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also issued a letter[16] in 2002 about the importance of disclosure of paid advertising on search engines, in response to a complaint from Commercial Alert, a consumer advocacy group with ties to Ralph Nader.

Another ethical controversy associated with search marketing has been the issue of trademark infringement. The debate as to whether third parties should have the right to bid on their competitors' brand names has been underway for years. In 2009 Google changed their policy, which formerly prohibited these tactics, allowing 3rd parties to bid on branded terms as long as their landing page in fact provides information on the trademarked term.[17] Though the policy has been changed this continues to be a source of heated debate.

At the end of February 2011 many started to see that Google has started to penalize companies that are buying links for the purpose of passing off the rank. SEM has however nothing to do with link buying and focuses on organic SEO and PPC management.

Major SEM Tools

There are four categories of tools to help you optimize websites.[18][19][20]

1. Keyword research and analysis: (a) Make sure the site can be indexed in the search engines; (b) find the most relevant and popular key terms and phrases for the site and its products; and (c) use those key phrases on the site in a way that will generate and convert traffic.

2. Website saturation and popularity: show how much presence a website has on search engines through the number of pages of the site that are indexed on each search engine (saturation) and how many times the site is linked to by other sites (popularity). Generally, the more Web presence you have, the easier it is for people to find your site. It requires your pages containing those keywords people are looking for and ensure that they rank high enough in search engine rankings. Most search engines include some form of link popularity in their ranking algorithms. The followings are major tools measuring various aspects of saturation and link popularity: Link Popularity, Top 10 Google Analysis, and Marketleap's Link Popularity and Search Engine Saturation.[19]

3. Back end tools (including Web analytic tools and HTML validators): Web analytic tools can help you to understand what is happening to your website and measure your website's success. They range from simple traffic counters to tools that work with log files [18] and to more sophisticated tools that are based on page tagging (putting JavaScript or an image on a page to track actions). These tools can deliver conversion-related information. There are three major tools used by EBSCO: (a) log file analyzing tool: WebTrends by NetiQ; (b) tag-based analytic programs WebSideStory's Hitbox; (c) transaction-based tool: TeaLeaf RealiTea. Validators check the invisible parts of websites, highlighting potential problems and many usability issues ensure your website meets W3C code standards. Try to use more than one HTML validator or spider simulator because each tests, highlights, and reports on slightly different aspects of your website.

4. Who Is tools: show you who owns and operates various webites, can provide valuable information relating to copyright and trademark issues.[20] Useful tools include Who Is Source, ARIN. Read a competitor's source code to look for hidden clues, Use Web analytics tools to find out more about your customers, Use the source code and Who Is tools to research legal issues.

SEM plan

Through trial and error you will be able to see how SEM drives highly targeted visitors to your online exhibitions. The following are the steps to a successful SEM plan:[21]

  1. Research your target audience.
  2. Set your online goals and key performance indicators.
  3. Build an initial list of important keywords that represent your current and most relevant content and potential content.
  4. Validate your keywords by testing and refining them with your keyword selector tools such as Yahoo Keyword Selector, Google Keyword Selector, Google Trends and Keyword Discovery.
  5. Check your current ranking.
  6. Optimise the website by improving your web design, architecture and web page content.
  7. Pursue link-building and partnerships.
  8. Colonize the Web by publishing and circulating it in wiki, blogs, and video and picture sites(e.g. Flickr and Youtube).
  9. Get in the news such as Google News with RSS feeds.[22]
  10. Install good tracking software, and track and analyze your performance for better results.
  1. http://www.optimizing.se Search Engine Optimization and SEO Workshops, is the Official Site of the International Forum and workshops on Search Engine Optimization and Marketing [22]

Examples of Best Practice

A successful SEM project was undertaken by one of London’s top SEM companies involving AdWords. AdWords is recognised as a web-based advertising utensil [11] since it adopts keywords which can deliver adverts explicitly to web users looking for information in respect to a certain product or service. This project is highly practical for advertisers as the project hinges on cost-per-click (CPC) pricing, thus the payment of the service only applies if their advert has been clicked on. SEM companies have embarked on AdWords projects as a way to publicize their SEM and SEO services. This promotion has helped their business elaborate, offering added value to consumers who endeavor to employ AdWords for promoting their products and services.[11] One of the most successful approaches to the strategy of this project was to focus on making sure that PPC advertising funds were prudently invested. Moreover, SEM companies have described AdWords as a fine practical tool for increasing a consumer’s investment earnings on Internet advertising. The use of free utensils “Conversion tracking” and “Google Analytics” was deemed to be practical for presenting to clients the performance of their canvass from click to conversion.[11] AdWords project has enabled SEM companies to train their clients on the utensil and delivers better performance to the canvass. The assistance of AdWord canvass could contribute to the huge success in the growth of web traffic for a number of its consumer’s website, by as much as 250% in only nine months.[11]

Another example of a successful SEM plan is the approach to capture the relationships amongst information searchers, businesses, and search engines. Search engines were not important to some industries in the past but over the past years, the use of search engines for accessing information has become vital to increase business opportunities.[23] The use of SEM strategic tools for businesses such as tourism can attract potential consumers to view their products but it could also pose various challenges.[23] These challenges could be the competition that companies face amongst their industry and other sources of information that could draw the attention of online consumers.[23] To assist the combat of challenges, the main objective for businesses applying SEM is to improve and maintain their ranking as high as possible on SERPs so that they can gain visibility. Therefore search engines are adjusting and developing algorithms and the shifting criteria by which web pages are ranked sequentially to combat against search engine misuse and spamming, and to supply the most relevant information to searchers.[23] This could enhance the relationship amongst information searchers, businesses, and search engines by understanding the strategies of marketing to attract business.

See also

Search engines with SEM programs

References

  1. ^ a b "The State of Search Engine Marketing 2006". Search Engine Land. February 8, 2007. Retrieved 2007-06-07.
  2. ^ "Search Engine Optimization". marketingterms.com. Retrieved 2010-04-22.
  3. ^ a b "Does SEM = SEO + CPC Still Add Up?". searchengineland.com. Retrieved 2010-03-05.
  4. ^ Elliott, Stuart (March 14, 2006). "More Agencies Investing in Marketing With a Click". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-06-07.
  5. ^ "Engine sells results, draws fire". news.com.com. June 21, 1996. Retrieved 2007-06-09.
  6. ^ "GoTo Sells Positions". searchenginewatch.com. March 3, 1998. Retrieved 2007-06-09.
  7. ^ "GoTo gambles with new name". news.com.com. September 10, 2001. Retrieved 2007-06-09.
  8. ^ Jansen, B. J. (2007). "The Comparative Effectiveness of Sponsored and Nonsponsored Links for Web E-commerce Queries" (PDF). ACM Transactions on the Web,. Retrieved 2007-06-09. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  9. ^ "Microsoft-Yahoo Deal Gets Green Light". informationweek.com. February 18, 2010. Retrieved 2010-07-15.
  10. ^ "Congratulations! You're A Search Engine Marketer!". searchenginewatch.com. November 5, 2001. Retrieved 2007-06-09.
  11. ^ a b c d e "Google Adwords Case Study" (PDF). AccuraCast. 2007. Retrieved 2011-03-30. {{cite web}}: |first= has generic name (help); |first= missing |last= (help)
  12. ^ Susan Ward (2011). "Social Media Marketing". About.com. Retrieved 2011-04-22.
  13. ^ "False Oracles: Consumer Reaction to Learning the Truth About How Search Engines Work (Abstract)". consumerwebwatch.org. June 30, 2003. Retrieved 2007-06-09.
  14. ^ "Searching for Disclosure: How Search Engines Alert Consumers to the Presence of Advertising in Search Results". consumerwebwatch.org. November 8, 2004. Retrieved 2007-06-09.
  15. ^ "Still in Search of Disclosure: Re-evaluating How Search Engines Explain the Presence of Advertising in Search Results". consumerwebwatch.org. June 9, 2005. Retrieved 2007-06-09.
  16. ^ "Re: Complaint Requesting Investigation of Various Internet Search Engine Companies for Paid Placement or ([[Pay per click]])". ftc.gov. June 22, 2002. Retrieved 2007-06-09. {{cite web}}: URL–wikilink conflict (help)
  17. ^ "Update to U.S. ad text trademark policy". adwords.blogspot.com. May 14, 2009. Retrieved 2010-07-15.
  18. ^ a b Chadwick, Terry Brainerd (July 2005). "How search engine marketing tools can work for you: or, searching is really all about finding, first of three articles". Information Outlook. Retrieved 2011-03-21.
  19. ^ a b Chadwick, Terry Brainerd (October 2005). "How search engine marketing tools can work for you: or searching is really all about finding, Second of three articles". Information Outlook. Retrieved 2011-03-21.
  20. ^ a b Chadwick, Terry Brainerd (November 2005). "How search engine marketing tools can work for you; or, searching is really all about finding, third of three articles". Information Outlook. Retrieved 2011-03-21.
  21. ^ Feeny, Daniel (2008). "Your website: greater visibility and return of investment through search engine marketing". Retrieved 2011-03-21.
  22. ^ a b Girdwood, Andrew (February 21, 2011). "14 Tips for Making the Most of Feeds". Search Engine Watch. Retrieved 2011-03-21. Cite error: The named reference "SEM" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  23. ^ a b c d Zheng Xiang, Bing Pan, Rob Law, and Daniel R. Fesenmaier (June 7, 2010). "Assessing the Visibility of Destination Marketing Organizations in Google: A Case Study of Convention and Visitor Bureau Websites in the United States" (PDF). Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing. Retrieved 2011-04-22.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) Cite error: The named reference "Tourism1" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
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