Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

Search engine marketing (SEM) is a form of paid online advertising. SEM is the practice of buying Text Ads Placement that appear next to results from online searches;  it is a form of Pay-for-placement or paid inclusion similar to yellow pages business model.  Search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN allow website owners to bid for placement on the search engine results pages (SERPs). Those willing to pay more can appear higher in the search results. Marketers buy the rights for their ads to appear on-screen when computer users type in key search phrases.

SEM can be more effective than traditional print, radio and TV media advertising and provides higher ROI via pay per click (PPC) methods. You only pay when users click on the text Ads, not when it is displayed. In 2007 companies in North America spent more than $9 billion on SEM. The largest SEM vendors are Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter.

The cost per click varies according to how competitive your market is, and how popular are the search phrases. The more generic and more popular the search terms, the more likely you'll see companies who are aggressively fighting for a top placement. You can bid for an Ad from 1 cent to tens of dollars per click. Some popular search phrases can be as high as $50 per click.

What is the difference between search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM)?

Search engine marketing (SEM) is a paid placement services on search engines. Search engine optimization (SEO) is free, however there is an initial fixed investment for optimizing and promoting your site to rank higher, but once you achieve the desired ranking, you do not pay for clicks. SEO is very difficult to achieve, only few experts are able to deliver on SEO promises, but the ROI is fantastic, achieving organic or natural top-ranking results is like getting premium real estate. It will increase your visibility and brand substantially. Even better, if users ignore SEM Ads, they can get to your site through the organic link.

Which one is better for my company, SEO or SEM?

The combination of SEM and SEO can be very effective in lead generation and customer acquisition. However, if you have a limited budget or must to choose one over the other, here is one way to make a decision:

Comparison of cost/benefits between SEO and SEM:

• Let's say your monthly marketing budget is $2,000 and the SEM cost of "pay per click" (PPC) bid is $1. For an SEM budget of $2000, you can expect to have 2000 clicks.

• If your SEO company can guarantee more than 2,000 clicks per month for $2000, then it is better to go with a SEO project. If not, then SEM is a better choice.

In general, if your market is highly competitive, then SEO is a much better investment. 

SEM and The Problem of Click-Fraud

Based on our experience, customers have been more satisfied with SEO than SEM, due to the rising costs of Pay per click (PPC) and the Click-Fraud issue. There are many stories of wasted SEM budgets that generate a lot of traffic but do not deliver any qualified leads or clients. The term "Click-Fraud" describes some unethical marketing firms that use automated software to click on SEM Ads or use some pay-to-surf schemes to have users click on your Ads although they are not interested in buying from you. This is done to generate income by the advertising websites. Even if there is no financial gain, your competition can use automated software programs to click on your ads to increase your cost. You have to be careful when investing with SEM. We recommend using web analytics to continuously measure the traffic, the conversion rate and the ROI whenever you pay for SEM Ad campaigns. Since SEO projects are fixed cost projects they does not have the same problem as SEM because you do not pay per click.

Pay-for-Performance SEO Projects and Unique IP Addresses

To avoid the Click-Fraud issue altogether, Online Marketing Pro can work with clients to develop a pay-for-performance plan based on the number of unique IP addresses (unique visitors) instead of the number of clicks.

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Las Vegas, NV, USA
contact(at)onlinemarketingpro.org | tel: (702) 294.2779

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