Search engine marketing is a new type of marketing normally used in internet field. Search Engine Marketing is also called as SEM. It is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search result pages (SERPs) through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, and paid inclusion. It is the process of marketing a web site on search, including search engine optimization, submitting site to the search and directories for organic listings, pay per inclusion, pay per click, banner ads or any other marketing programs offered by search. It is a broad term that describes all of the activities used to promote web sites and thus generate leads and
sales from search .

A successful Search Engine marketing campaign may drive organic traffic to web pages, but it also may involve the use of paid advertising on Internet and other pages, building high quality web pages to engage and persuade, addressing technical issues that may keep search engines from crawling and indexing those sites, setting up analytic programs to enable site owners to measure their successes, and improving a site's conversion rate.

Benefits of SEM

Below are the some benefits of using SEM -

* Best way to serach site
May surveys have shown that search and directories are the most popular method used to find websites.

* High % of People use search results
The majority of Web users search the web every day (57%). The only thing done online more often than using search is checking email - 81% check email every day.

* High Data
There are more than 320 million searches are made through search results and directories each day. Google alone had over 80 billion searches during 2008.

* Qualified traffic
Traffic search engines and directories deliver to websites is highly qualified because users are actively searching for the information. This is the major difference to traffic delivered by banner advertising.

* More effective than banners
There are 5 - 6 times more online purchases made from traffic delivered by search results compared to banner advertising. The cost for online marketing campaigns using search results is significantly lower than that for banner advertising.

* Cost Effective
Not only are search results highly effective online marketing tools - they're also cost efficient.

Evolution of SEM

As the number of sites on the Web increased in the mid-to-late 90s, search engines started appearing to help people find information quickly. Search Optimization developed business models to finance their services, such as pay per click programs offered by Open Text in 1996 and then Goto.com in 1998. Google also began to offer advertisements on search results pages in 2000 through the Google AdWords program. By 2007, pay-per-click programs proved to be primary money-makers for search.

The term "Search Engine Marketing" was proposed by Danny Sullivan in 2001 to cover the spectrum of activities involved in performing SEO, managing paid listings at the search engines, submitting sites to directories, and developing online marketing strategies for businesses, organizations, and individuals.

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