What is Search Engine Marketing?
One of the biggest keys to success in making money marketing online is to understand search engine marketing.
Search engine marketing is the art of increasingly the visibility of a website in the search engines. Just because you have a website, doesn’t mean it is going to be found. There are two ways visitors can get to your site for the first time: from a link on another site or from a search engine. Of these two, search engines have much greater potential to send a higher volume of sustained traffic.
In order to obtain traffic from search engines, you have to rank highly for terms that people search. When people use a search engine, they rarely go past the first page. An even on the first page ranking number one is massively better than ranking eight or nine. Ideally, the link to your website should be on the screen when your chosen word (usually referred to as you ‘keyword’) is searched for.
There are a number of ways to do this. The quickest is paid placement.
Paid Placement
These are the ads you often see on search engines like Google and Yahoo! When you type in a query, you will see results on the right hand side and some times above the standard results. These people have paid to be shown in these positions.
Advantages:
- Using paid placement is an almost guarantee of traffic.
- You can choose which keywords to target exactly.
- You can make your campaigns highly targeted.
- It means you get instant traffic to your site.
Disadvatages
- Cost. You have to make sure that your site converts to sales well enough to justify the cost of these ads.
- Short term. If you stop buying ads, you stop ranking.
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice improving your sites performance in the organic search results. That is, to rank in the search engines without using the paid methods.
SEO is divided into two main categories: on-site SEO and off-site SEO. With on-site SEO you improve your site so the search engines better understand the subject of your site and will, therefore, rank it better for your chosen keywords. Off-site SEO involves building links to your site to increase the authority it has with the search engines.
Advantages:
- Free.
- Long lasting. Once you have a high ranking, the traffic will keep coming in without you doing anything until your ranking falls.
- Greater credibility. Many searchers do not trust ads and will not click on them. Appearing in the organic results shows a much greater level of trust and authority.
Disadvantages:
- Time. It will take time for a brand new site to gain authority with search engines and rise up the rankings. Search engines tend to prefer older sites that have built up a reputation over time.
- No guaranteed results.
Those are the advantages and disadvantages of the two main methods of search engine marketing. In your online marketing methods, it is likely that you will use both from time to time and the two work well together. Paid placement is a great way to build some early momentum to your site and pick up links to build your authority with the search engines.

