Do You Need Search Engine Marketing?
Ask yourself these basic questions:
Do you have a website?
Do you want people to see your website?
Would you like your website to attract new customers, clients or leads for your business?
If you answered yes to ANY of the questions above – you need Search Engine Marketing.
What is Search Engine Marketing?
Search Engine Marketing, or SEM, is the process of marketing your website in search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask. The majority of all website traffic is driven by the major commercial search engines so getting your business in front of search engine users is essential for any business with an online presence. Often search engine traffic can make or break a business’ success online. Investing in SEM can result in an exceptional rate of return on investment, or ROI.
SEM may include both paid advertising in the search engines and optimizing your website to appear in the organic or “free” search engine listings.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Paid advertising in the search engines is often referred to as Pay-Per-Click, or PPC. With PPC you bid on keywords associated with your business much like an auction. Your ads will then appear when users type in your keywords based on your bid amount. However, you only pay for clicks, when someone actually clicks on your ad in the search engine to view your website. With PPC you can control when and where your ads appear instantly and can provide a great ROI if the ad campaign and budget are managed well.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Organic SEM is referred to as Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. SEO is the practice of optimizing a web site by improving internal and external factors to increase the traffic your site receives from search engines. SEO can help boost search engine rankings so that your website will appear where users searching for your products or services will easily see it, at the top of the results. The search engines are picky though and while there are things which can be done to your site to improve your website traffic, there also things that you may not be aware of on your site that can make it nearly invisible to the search engines. With SEO the results are not as immediate as with PPC but once you see your website’s rankings in the search engines increase you’ll likely begin to see increased activity on your website leading to more contacts, leads or sales and resulting in an increased ROI for you business.
The Future of SEM
Recent research shows businesses investing in SEM are steadily increasing despite the gloomy economic forecast.
- 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.
- Marketers are finding more search dollars by poaching budget from print magazine and newspaper spending, direct mail and other marketing programs.
If those findings don’t convince you that you need SEM for your business’ website think about who is going to be spending that money on marketing their business online. Your competitors will.
For more information on how Search Engine Marketing can help your business, please call 214-323-2100 or email sales@masterlink.com