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Search engine marketing, also called SEM or paid search, is a paid digital advertising strategy used by advertisers to increase the visibility of your website or product to audiences through SERPs.
Before we jump into tips and strategies about SEM, let’s discuss how it got started. After the invention of the internet, search engines created an opportunity for advertisers to leverage SERPs in marketing strategies. The company OpenText Corporation created the first pay-per-click (PPC) ads, which created the first form of SEM.1 However, the marketing strategy didn’t get its official name until 2001.2 That’s when technologist and journalist Danny Sullivan created the term in an article he wrote for his search engine marketing publication.3
Why is SEM important?
SEM helps brands raise awareness. Ultimately, the higher a brand’s ads appear or rank on search engines, the higher the chances are that those ads are being seen by audiences. Being at the top of SERPs can help drive awareness, consideration, and trust for brands.
Additionally, SEM can be an important way for marketers to drive traffic to websites, landing pages, and product pages through SERPs. The ultimate goal of SEM is to increase a website’s visibility, using a variety of techniques and strategies to generate more audience visits. Marketers can also use paid search, contextual advertising, and organic search rankings to increase website visibility.
When it comes to paid ads, SEM can offer better click-through rates (CTR) and higher conversions than other passive forms of marketing. And its PPC model allows businesses to easily tailor campaigns, allowing brands to focus on specific keywords to help reach relevant audiences.
What is the difference between SEO and SEM?
You’ve probably heard of search engine optimization (SEO). It’s an important marketing strategy that can help brands attract consumer attention, drive website traffic, and grow your business. But it’s important to know the difference between SEM and SEO.
The key difference between SEO and SEM is that SEM uses paid strategies to appear in SERPs, whereas SEO uses organic strategies to appear in search. SEM uses paid tactics to rank highly on SERPs and increase search visibility to help drive traffic to a website or specific webpages. An example of these tactics would be setting up and optimizing ads as well as setting a budget that pays for the placement of ads.
How does search engine marketing work?
SEM uses paid advertising to ensure that your brand’s products or services are discoverable in search engine results pages (SERPs). When a user types in a certain keyword or search term, SEM enables your brand to appear as a result for that search query. Advertisers pay for impressions, which can help bring visitors to your website, landing page, social media channels, or products.
Simply put, marketers are paying or bidding for the top space in SERPs on a certain keyword.