Search engine marketing (SEM) is the act of marketing a website via search engines, whether by improving rank in organic or natural listings, paid or sponsored listings or a combination of both.
A comprehensive search engine marketing campaign includes the following functions:
- Search engine optimization
- Search engine and directory submission management
- Paid inclusion and trusted feed programs
- Pay-for-placement management (includes pay-per-click)
- Link popularity / reputation development
- ROI and performance monitoring and reporting
SEO - PROS
- Organic listings are a trusted source of information, believed to be unbiased and indexed solely by the automated methods of an objective third-party
- Natural search traffic provides a steady stream of traffic over time
- Costs are frontloaded; once pages are optimized for organic search, low ongoing maintenance fees make it cost-efficient for marketers on a limited budget
- Organic results can be unfocused in their content and occasionally misconstrued through automation
- There’s little control over which terms your pages will be linked with or how well they get ranked
- Relatively low control over your listing copy - automated technology decides what’s displayed
- Organic listings have to be optimized well in advance of the intended pay-off and require great insight to production efforts down the road
- Engine requirements can be at odds with site design and architecture; it is often difficult to present information that is both accessible to search spiders and carefully designed to influence consumer behavior
SEM - PROS
- Paid traffic comes with a measure of predictability, allowing marketers to forecast both volume and cost-efficiency for relevant metrics
- The free-market bidding system offers full access to a target audience and the opportunity to scale campaigns and pursue them aggressively, creating synergies with sales promotions
- Paid traffic can provide a boost to site volume when most needed
- Creative is completely customizable, to further the user’s search intent and strategically position a brand within that search engine dialogue
- Paid listings are manually generated, and constructed with more awareness to the environment and a consumer’s true intent
- Sponsored ads are known to drive more sales than ordinary search links, converting at higher rates
- Paid listings can get very expensive across competitive keywords, where market forces can quickly inflate cost-per-clicks (CPC)
- A certain portion of the customer base is wary of paid listings.
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