Search engine marketing

Search Engine Marketing

There’s another acronym buzzword these days, by the name of SEM.  Search Engine Marketing, or SEM, is becoming the tool of choice for businesses who want their products to be seen by the people who are most likely to be their customers.  SEM isn’t new, and has been in use on the Internet for almost as long as secure transactions have been available; longer, if we consider that it was corporate business that kept search engines afloat in the early days of Internet commercialization.

Today, search engines learn a lot about almost everyone who uses the internet.  Every search that is made is a tally on a statistical chart to search engines, and big business is paying big bucks to get at that information in the form of targeted marketing.  Sponsored ads are a form of SEM, appearing at the top of searches in many search engines, as well as located in the form of transitional ads on millions of websites.  Basically, a business pays for being included in searches through the use of keywords, or even randomized associations. 

One extreme is to see an ad offering you how to find books on some obscure topic that there simply aren’t any books pertaining to.  One argument in favor of this approach is that there will be books on the subject.. if enough people show an interest in that particular niche.  In a sense, this is reverse marketing, driving the demand for a product ahead of the product in order to be able to effectively produce a product that is in high demand.  This isn’t a new marketing tool, either.  It’s roots can be traced to traveling salemen in the old west, and points to even earlier times.  But it’s ethics are questionable at best, and the results are nearly as likely to be harmful as they are to be beneficial.

On the opposite end of the spectrum are Google’s adwords, which are specifically chosen to match keywords in searches based on keywords used to describe the ad.  Social websites are covered with ads for dating and other personal fulfillments, not as randomly placed ads, but as direct associations with content on the page, in the form of keywords.  If a page uses the word “travel” the it is more likely to contain ads that pertain to travel sites, vacation planning and tourism.  Even on sites which have no immediate relation to search engines, these tools are effectively used, and selected by relying on search words and terms often used by people, and placing content-sensitive ads to attract clicks.

Whether you wish to create a niche that stands out, and use marketing to drive that niche’s popularity, or use popular search terms to drive traffic to your website, SEM is an intelligent marketing tool, and should be considered a viable addition to any company’s PR or advertising budget.

Article written by SEOnotepad.com