Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

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Search Engine Marketing, or SEM, is designed to increase a website’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). Search engines provide sponsored results and organic (non-sponsored) results based on a web searcher’s query. Search engines often employ visual cues to differentiate sponsored results from organic results. Search engine marketing includes all of an advertiser’s actions to make a website’s listing more prominent for topical keywords.Search engine marketing (SEM) refers to the short text advertisements which generally appear at the top or down the right hand side of search engine results. These are often labelled as “sponsored Links” or “sponsored results”. These advertisements are generally purchased from GoogleTM (the Google AdwordsTM product), or Yahoo! Search Marketing (YSM – formerly Overture)TM (YSMTMsupplies the paid search advertisements to Yahoo!TM Search, and ninemsn Search, here in Australia).

Advertisers bid in a never ending 24x7x365 auction to determine the highest placed advertisement. Google’s system also factors Click Through Rate (CTR) in its ranking of advertisements. Search Engine Marketing process is often generically referred to as “pay per click” (PPC) advertising because you only pay when someone clicks on the advertising link, not when your advertisement is displayed.

Search engine marketing (or, more correctly, search engine advertising) is effectively paid advertising in search engines, where you ‘Pay Per Click’ (PPC). It is text advertising delivered in response to ‘trigger’ words typed into the search box. The surfer types in a search phrase, the PPC advertisements which have bid on that phrase are displayed, and if the surfer clicks on a text advertisement they are taken to the advertiser’s website. At that point, the advertiser’s account is charged for the ‘click through’ by the search engine’s advertising partner.