Search Engine Marketing has become a contemporary advertising strategy among companies, agencies, and marketing firms today. In cities like Calgary, Alberta; Red Deer, Alberta; or Edmonton, Alberta an increasing number of people have relied on the internet as their primary source information. It makes sense, considering the internet holds information just about anything.

As they say, the internet allows us to hold information right at our fingertips. Search has become more convenient through the help of search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. These search engines not only give the most relevant results in every search, but also provide paid advertisements that is related with the topic being searched. This is where Search Engine Marketing comes in.

What is Search Engine Marketing?

Search Engine Marketing or SEM consists of a series of strategies utilized by companies around the world to efficiently and effectively run advertisements on various search engine websites.

To illustrate, a female teenager would like to know about the different beauty products for oily skin. She would thus go online, visit Google, and type in “beauty products for oily skin.” Google would then display the top ten organic search results, and at the same time, some paid advertisements most relevant to the search.

Of course, companies who shell out funds for Pay Per Click or PPC advertisements would want to maximize their return on investment. The process of doing so is called Search Engine Marketing.

How does Search Engine Marketing work?

Pay Per Click advertising allows various companies and brands to appear right on top of relevant internet searches made by their target market. In availing of Pay Per Click advertisements, companies are to bid for the keywords and key phrases that they want their website to be associated with. The most searched keywords and key phrases are therefore also the most expensive. As such, companies who bid on these keywords would want to make the most of what they pay for.

Indeed, maximizing the return on investment in any Pay Per Click campaign is a challenge. Search Engine Marketing teams begins the process with an in-depth keyword research, to ensure optimum landing pages for related keywords. Afterwards, the campaign team is broken down into smaller groups, with each group assigned to various subsets of the business. After the advertisements for every subset has been written, the performance of the campaign is closely monitored from a micro perspective, allowing for improvements and adjustments midway the campaign.

Among the services that Search Engine Marketing teams often perform are the following:

• Account setup
• Advertisement copy writing
• Keyword research

Fees paid for SEM services do not include the advertisement fees that are payable to search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. These often also do not include maintenance. Of course, it is highly recommended for companies to avail maintenance services from the same SEM team that launched the advertisement campaign. This does not only ensure continuity in terms of the campaign message, but it can also potentially mean lowered costs, as most SEM teams offer maintenance services for a discount.