What is Search Engine Marketing? The success of your online business depends on SEM: find out how to promote your website on search engines!
Marketing in the new millennium is increasingly prominent on the web. Search engines are the main point of reference for any user looking to make a purchase.
Search engines are a battleground of intense competition: the top results returned by each search capture almost all the traffic (70% goes to the top 5). This creates the need to gain visibility on the web by generating targeted traffic.
Business web marketing strategies rely on SEM.
With appropriate Search Engine Marketing techniques, it is possible to “stay afloat” in an increasingly competitive and crowded market. The acronym SEM refers to the set of online marketing activities aimed at driving traffic to a website by increasing its visibility on search engines (such as Google and Yahoo).
Search engines have now taken on the role of intermediaries between producers and consumers: they are the primary source of information during the purchase search phase. SEM is the process of acquiring traffic and visibility on search engines, and it involves both free and paid activities.
SEM is technically divided into SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEA (Search Engine Advertising). The first, free, refers to the set of activities that increase the natural (organic) visibility of a site on search engines. It improves the ranking on the pages resulting from a search (the SERP) for relevant keywords.
The second refers to the use of paid ads on search engines, the evolution of “old-fashioned” advertising aimed at pushing consumers toward a company’s products. SEA is a promotional method that uses paid ads to appear at the top of search engine result pages.
The most widely used SEA tool by companies to stay competitive on the internet? Google AdWords!
The AdWords platform is reserved for ads and allows websites to appear above or to the right of the natural results in the SERPs. Similar tools are available for other search engines (such as Bing and Yahoo).
AdWords uses the keyword system. The company, after identifying the terms and search keys that best identify its business, then places a bid on AdWords – just like in an auction – targeting specific keywords, identified through market analysis or specific tools, while avoiding those with excessive competition to control costs.
Ads are paid according to the Pay per Click (PPC) model. The company, therefore, only pays when the search engine user clicks on the ad link – until the budget is exhausted.
Another acronym to keep in mind is CTR, or Click-Through Rate. This expresses the percentage ratio between the clicks obtained and the views: in practice, how many people clicked on the link after seeing it. However, the success of an AdWords campaign also depends on the fact that those who click are genuinely interested in the ad!
Search Engine Marketing is crucial for companies that want to remain competitive on the web. Without SEO, many websites – even those that are technically perfect and attractive – would remain invisible to search engines.
The SEO optimization of the site – possibly integrated with SEA campaigns – is essential to be found by search engines before others.
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