How Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Works: Optimizing & Advertising

Search engine marketing is a complex art and science. Achieving high rankings in search results is not easy—there is lot of competition for top placement. To implement a successful search engine marketing strategy, you need to have a good understanding of what it is that search engines, their users, and your customers are looking for and then build a comprehensive plan to satisfy their collective needs.

There are two core methods of achieving top positions in the major search engines; optimization and advertising. It’s important to note that these are not mutually exclusive—a comprehensive search engine marketing strategy will include both of these methods.

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing your website for the crawler-based search engines—making your website "search engine friendly." Successful search engine optimization will increase your site’s ranking in the natural search results listings. This is the most cost-effective means of improving your website’s ranking in the search results. It is also the most time-consuming method. It can take between 60 to 90 days to realize SEO results, however, these results tend to be long-term if continually monitored and tended to.

SEO (also referred to as organic or natural search engine optimization) generally involves:

competitive ranking analysis
relevant keyword analysis and selection
search engine-focused copywriting
search engine-friendly code optimization
title, meta tag and hyperlink optimization
search engine paid inclusion and manual submissions
measuring success

See What’s the difference between SEO and SEM?

Search Engine Advertising

Search engine advertising is the process of purchasing keyword listings in the search engines. The most popular form of search engine advertising is called pay-for-placement. Successful pay-for-placement advertising will place your website ad in the top paid or sponsored search engine listings. Pay-for-placement programs are typically based on the pay-per-click (PPC) module.

These PPC programs (i.e., Overture, Google AdWords, FindWhat.com, Kanoodle.com GoClick.com, etc.) allow advertisers to open an account and then bid on keywords for pennies per click. Although each PPC venue handles bidding differently, the premise is based purely on ROI—you pay only when a consumer clicks on your ad listing. Depending on your competition, you may need to update each keyword bid weekly, daily, or even hourly. Although maintenance intense, this method can provide immediate results.

Pay-per-click (PPC) generally involves:

competitive bid analysis
relevant keyword analysis and selection
writing effective ad copy
ad placement management
bid management
matching option selection
measuring success

SEM Makes Your Website Work for You

Whether your choose organic search engine optimization, paid advertising, or both, search engine marketing works. It will deliver measurable results for you.

Learn more about Strategic Ranking and our search engine marketing solutions!

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