SEM Consulting: Search Engine Marketing

Internet, web or search engine marketing can generally be defined as generating sales and/or capturing leads & enquiries from potential customers who are surfing the Internet.

Traditionally, this has meant an SEM consultant trying to get your website into the main search engine's (Google, Bing, Yahoo etc.) organic rankings - so that it shows up when a potential customer of yours types in a commercially relevant 'keyword phrase'. There are consultants and specialists who make their living by working to get sites on the first page of the search engine results for the keywords that will generate sales and leads. This specific SEM consulting service is called SEO (Search Engine Optimisation.) For background information and a basic explanation of SEO, click on the 'What Is SEO & SEM' bullet in the left column.

Internet marketing has now grown to include PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising which includes Google Adwords. These are ads that are written by advertisers to be triggered when certain keywords or phrases are searched on (when you perform a search, they will generally show up on the right hand side and in a boxed area at the top of the page.) Each time a person clicks on the ad, they are sent to the advertiser’s website, and the advertiser is charged for that one 'click' only. i.e. You only pay when someone 'asks' to see your advert. This is how Google, Bing and Yahoo make billions of dollars every year.

The future of Internet marketing lies in a comprehensive strategy that maximises both of these areas synergistically. Any good SEM consultant will tell you that PPC often brings in the first results, and is used to test the market and keywords needed. But SEO must be kicked off as early as possible, as it takes time (weeks and sometimes months) to build consistent results. Once SEO results start to trickle in, you benefit from a growing 'snowball' of leads/enquiries with a zero acquisition cost - something that all businesses should aspire to!