Search Engine Marketing
What is it & how does it help?
Search Engine Marketing (also called SEM) is taking the search engine optimisation process one step further and actually marketing a website online using a range of techniques.
Some of these techniques include manually building inbound links into a website from well regarded and content related external websites. Another involves publishing both online articles and press releases based around the services that your company provides. This is called ‘Article distribution’ Other techniques include online social networking, BLOGGING and Directory submissions.
Once your website is fully optimised, then a search engine marketing campaign can take it to the next level. You have the opportunity to select a number of key phrases that best describe your business offerings and you can then drive marketing to those phrases to generate visibility and traffic into your site. To insure you market the most effective key phrases, your online marketing company can use tools that have the ability to enhance your chosen key phrases by matching them up with related key phrases that Internet users most commonly type in. Once visibility starts to increase then the enquiries and sales should start rolling in.
Search Engine Marketing – What not to do!
Never go with an online marketing company that say they can get you on the natural search engine listings in a week! If this is the case then they are probably promising to either: -
- Get you on the natural listings for one key phrase – not very useful as not all users are going to be typing in one phrase to get to your website.
- Get you on the natural listings for your company name. The chances are you are already visible for that and between you and us – this is no difficult task.
- Get you on the natural listings for low search and traffic volume key phrases like ‘plumber in London with dark hair and a tattoo’! It sounds ridiculous but at the end of the day they are doing what they say so be aware.
The process of Search Engine Marketing is time consuming and labour intensive. As well as that, results can take between 4 and 8 months to be seen depending upon the level of online competition visible on the search engines. Don’t be scared to ask your online marketing company how they will be marketing your website. If they know what they are talking about then they should be happy to discuss.
Search Engine Marketing – Quick Results through Sponsored Advertising!
If your business requires instant results straight after the website is live or during the period of search engine marketing, you can generate guaranteed traffic to your website within days through Pay-per-click’ (PPC) or Sponsored Advertising campaigns.
Google (Adwords), Yahoo (Overture) and MSN (AdCenter) are the three main search engines to visit if you are thinking about this form of advertising.
Sponsored Advertising provides a good way to measure return on investment, however we do feel as though the power of natural search engine listings exceeds that of sponsored listings. For this reason, we believe it is an interim and/or support solution and should not be depended on 100% for sales and lead generation.
Search Engine Marketing – Why do companies lose faith?
Google, Yahoo and MSN do not publicise how they measure and rank websites. Their algorithms are updated regularly to ensure their systems are fair and consistent and therefore it is difficult to always be ahead of the game.
It makes the life of an online marketer all the more difficult as it is their responsibility to keep up to date and informed of changes and advances within the market.
Search Engine Marketing companies who do not keep on top of the changes can find themselves providing their clients with a less effective service which has the potential to reduce the effectiveness of the campaign. This can make companies lose trust and faith in the system.
As mentioned above – there are many ‘Search Engine Marketing’ companies out there; some of which could fall comfortably in the bracket of ‘search engine cowboys’! As more and more business get stung by online marketing companies who promise everything and deliver nothing – you cannot blame them for losing faith and giving up on the whole idea.
The trick is to ensure the online marketing company you use is legitimate. Ask them the following: -
- How exactly will they market you website on online?
- How long have they been in the industry?
- What other companies have they does online marketing for – and what results can they show you?
From these three questions alone you will be able to make a more informed decision.
Conclusion
In summary, search engine marketing (phase two of online marketing) is a service that can make or break a company. Get it right and you’ll be laughing. Get it wrong and you’ll be crying. The key thing to remember about search engine marketing is that there is no point in investing in it unless your website is correctly search engine optimised. If you get this right at the initial stage then you have a better chance of success.
The great thing about online marketing as a whole is how different a style of marketing it is than traditional offline methods. Ask yourself this simple question. When you receive a spam email, unsolicited phone call or the traditional postal junk mail – what tends to be your reaction?
These forms of push marketing are becoming more and more irritating as time goes on. Online marketing (pull marketing) offers the complete other end of the spectrum. It allows potential clients to find you when they need you and not the other way around.
By developing an aesthetically pleasing website with helpful and informative content that allows users to find what they are looking for quickly and easily - it’s difficult to go wrong.
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