Search engine marketing (SEM) is a type of internet marketing that includes promoting websites by enhancing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) mainly through paid advertising. SEM may integrate search engine optimization (SEO) that adjusts or rewrites website content and site architecture to obtain a greater ranking in search engine results pages to improve search engine outcomes.
U.S. advertisers spent $24.6 billion in marketing for search engines in 2007. Google (73.7%) and the Yahoo / Bing partnership (26.3%) accounted for nearly 100% of U.S. search engine spending in Q2 2015. Since 2006, SEM has grown much quicker than traditional advertising and even other internet marketing channels. Managing search campaigns is achieved either directly with the SEM seller or through a supplier of SEM tools. It can also be self-serving or through a publicity agency.
Google is leading the worldwide market for search engines with a market share of 89.3 percent as of October 2016. Bing is second with a market share of 4.36%, Yahoo is third with a market share of 3.3%, and Chinese search engine Baidu is fourth with a share of around 0.68% worldwide.
As the number of sites on the Web increased in the mid-to-late 1990s, search engines started appearing to help people find information quickly. Search engines 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. Goto.com later changed its name to Overture in 2001, was purchased by Yahoo! in 2003, and now offers paid search opportunities for advertisers through Yahoo! Search Marketing.
Google also started offering advertisements through the Google AdWords program on google results pages in 2000. By 2007, search engine pay-per-click programs have proven to be the main money-makers. In 2009, Yahoo! and Microsoft announced their intention to forge an alliance in a market dominated by Google. In February 2010, the Yahoo! & Microsoft Search Alliance was finally approved by regulators in the US and Europe.
Search engine optimization consultants expanded their offerings to help businesses learn about and use the advertising opportunities offered by search engines, and new agencies focusing primarily upon marketing and advertising through search engines emerged. The term “search engine marketing” was popularized 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.
Methods and metrics to optimize websites, search engine marketing utilizes at least five techniques and metrics.
Keyword research and evaluation includes three’ measures’: ensuring that the website can be indexed in the search engines, discovering the most appropriate and common keywords for the website and its products, and using those keywords on the website to produce and transform traffic.
The search perception impact is a follow-up effect of keyword analysis and research. The effect of search perception explains the recognized effect on customer perception of a brand’s search outcomes, including title and meta tags, location indexing, and keyword concentrate. Since online searching is often the first step for prospective consumers /customers, the effect of search perception forms each individual’s brand impression.
