Search Engine Marketing is the set of paid activities to promote your website in search engines. Although SEO helps in increasing your website rank in search results, it has its own limitations due to various factors in the algorithm used by search engines.
All leading search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing have their own SEM programs through which companies display their website as sponsored links in the first page of the search results. Unlike traditional media, where you buy the ad space, in search engines you bid for the keywords in which you would like to be placed as top links in the search results. You can choose to pay for clicks or No. of impressions (pageviews). In Pay Per Click model (PPC), every time users click on your link, you will be charged to your account. In CPM (Cost Per Thousand) model, you will be charged for every thousand impressions or pageviews your ad receives.
Let’s say you are a reseller for printers of brand X. If the customer searches for “buy brand X printers or purchase brand X printers” then your SEO efforts might pay off and place your website as one of the top links compared to your competitor who has not done any SEO.
But when customer searches for keywords for brand X or brand x printers, it is very likely that the top results may contain the actual website of brand X or a Wikipedia page for Brand X etc. This is due to the fact that the content relevance of those websites will be more than yours. Even though your website might still appear in the first page, it may not be the best position to generate traffic. In such cases, SEM helps by placing your website in the top links of the search results as sponsored links.
However having PPC ads for all generic keywords might prove you costly and decreases your ROI. It is ideal for you to bid for specific keywords which will be more effective to increase conversions. For example, if you are catering to you a specific location, let say Bangalore, then you may want to bid for ‘brand X printers Bangalore’ which will prove more beneficial rather than just brand X printers.
Search Engine Marketing increases the visibility of your website through
Search Engine Marketing Cycle
