What is Search Engine Marketing?

Around the mid-to-late 1990's, search engines began to appear online as an assistant to consumers in finding which company sells the product or service they need. Search engine usage began to boom and the birth of Search Engine Marketing occurred. Nowadays, the practice of this type of marketing is so incredibly common that there is a plethora of information available about its origin, its strategies, as well as its sometimes controversial agenda.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is term that describes the various marketing techniques used to make your website more visible on search engines. Two specific, and more commonly used forms of Search Engine Marketing techniques include search engine optimization (SEO) and well as buying Pay Per Click (PPC) advertisements.

Search Engine Optimization involves using various strategies including keyword rich tag lines and articles during the creation as well as the maintenance of a website. Alternatively, Pay Per Click advertisements are sponsored listings in which the advertiser (website owner) pays the search engine to "spotlight" the site in return for payment each time the link is clicked. Both forms of Search Engine Marketing can prove to be invaluable for a struggling website and can easily increase the traffic brought to the site.

The form of Search Engine Marketing that takes the most effort and maintenance is the a Search Engine Optimization. For writers, the task at hand is of creating a series of articles, blog posts, forum posts, etc. which direct wanted traffic to their website. These articles typically display keywords relevant to the website's theme or the scope of their business. For example if a writer is hired to promote an Identity Theft Protection Service, they would use keywords within the article such as Identity Theft or Identity Protection.

The purpose of this type of writing is to saturate the internet with keywords and keyword phrases that trigger the search engines to list your site as the return result for the consumer's request.

When writing an SEO article for the purpose of marketing you must capture the full scope of services and/or provide researched information. At times, these article can be geared toward teaching and informational purposes rather than for simple for casual reading. Other times, casual and light reading with mere hints of what your products and services are may get you a better chance of capturing your reader's eye. Search Engine Optimized articles must also be search engine “friendly". This means that the keywords you want to "tag" your website with must be used so that the search engine can properly be alerted when a consumer is searching for your specific product.

The fact remains that Search Engine Marketing has boomed into a force to be reckoned with this day and age of web-based businesses. It is imperative for large and small businesses alike to employ the search engine marketing tactics that thousands of other companies employ just to stay in the game of advertising. If not, it is very possible your website can easily be left behind.