The Importance of SEM in your overall marketing strategy

Everyone can agree that the acceleration of online activity over the past five years has been nothing short of phenomenal. Our global society has witnessed unprecedented growth in the area of online activity from conducting research to shopping and everything in between. This growth has spanned not only desk-top but mobile technologies as well. So why is it that some businesses, or industries for that matter, may still fall behind a bit when it comes to prioritizing SEM into their overall marketing strategy? Perhaps many don’t have a solid grasp of what it is and how it can work for them, so we’d like to help with that. First, what exactly is Search Engine Marketing? It’s a term that we hear tossed around quite a bit these days, but nevertheless, it’s important to have a good understanding of what it is.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the entire set of techniques and strategies used to generate more visitors from search engines to your business or marketing website. SEM seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages through the use of paid search, contextual advertising and organic placement.

Paid Search refers to the text ads that show up in search engines such as Google or Yahoo, which are targeted to a user’s keyword search. Paid search is very targeted advertising, and when supported with strong analytics, can be very useful in determining ROI. Paid search can also be referred to as Search marketing, pay per click or cost-per-click advertising.

Contextual Advertising refers to text ads that are the targeted to writings on the web such as blogs or news articles.

Organic Search or Search Engine Optimization are the results that come up via a generic search. In order to have your business site rank high in a search, it is important that you optimize HTML code, web page copy, site navigation and more. The higher your site appears in a search, the more likely consumers will click on it. So, how can SEM work for you and your business? Well, as stated above “SEM seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages through the use of paid search, contextual advertising and organic placement.”   Good SEM will literally drive business to your site, but to break it down into a few specifics, here are four ways that SEM can support your over-all marketing strategy:

1. SEM can increase and enhance your brand awareness.
2. SEM can sell products, services or content online.
3. SEM can generate online leads and increase sales.
4. SEM can provide informational and educational content.

So, as you can see, SEM really should be an integral component of your overall marketing strategy, not just an after-thought.  If you’re not sure that you are optimizing your SEM, give us a call. We’ve been helping businesses increase brand awareness, generate leads and increase sales since 2000, and we’d love to help your business as well.

This blog was written by Sarah Schwitters, Chief Marketing Officer at lodestar marketing group. If you would like to talk with lodestar about helping with your Search Engine Marketing needs, contact us at dm.lmg@lodestarmg.com