Search engine marketing

Search engine marketing (SEM) is a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) primarily through paid advertising.[1] SEM may incorporate search engine optimization (SEO), which adjusts or rewrites website content and site architecture to achieve a higher ranking in search engine results pages to enhance pay per click (PPC) listings.[2]

Market

In 2007, U.S. advertisers spent US$24.6 billion on search engine marketing.[3] In Q2 2015, Google (73.7%) and the Yahoo/Bing (26.3%) partnership accounted for almost 100% of U.S. search engine spend.[4] As of 2006, SEM was growing much faster than traditional advertising and even other channels of online marketing.[5] Managing search campaigns is either done directly with the SEM vendor or through an SEM tool provider. It may also be self-serve or through an advertising agency.

History

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[6] in 1996 and then Goto.com[7] in 1998. Goto.com later changed its name[8] to Overture in 2001, was purchased by Yahoo! in 2003, and now offers paid search opportunities for advertisers through Yahoo! Search Marketing. Google also began to offer advertisements on search results pages in 2000 through the Google AdWords program. By 2007, pay-per-click programs proved to be primary moneymakers[9] for search engines. In a market dominated by Google, in 2009 Yahoo! and Microsoft announced the intention to forge an alliance. The Yahoo! & Microsoft Search Alliance eventually received approval from regulators in the US and Europe in February 2010.[10]

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 proposed by Danny Sullivan in 2001[11] 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

There are five categories of methods and metrics used to optimize websites through search engine optimization.[12]

  1. Keyword research and analysis involves three "steps": ensuring the site can be indexed in the search engines, finding the most relevant and popular keywords for the site and its products, and using those keywords on the site in a way that will generate and convert traffic. A follow-on effect of keyword analysis and research is the search perception impact.[13] Search perception impact describes the identified impact of a brand's search results on consumer perception, including title and meta tags, site indexing, and keyword focus. As online searching is often the first step for potential consumers/customers, the search perception impact shapes the brand impression for each individual.
  2. Website saturation and popularity, or how much presence a website has on search engines, can be analyzed through the number of pages of the site that are indexed by search engines (saturation) and how many backlinks the site has (popularity). It requires pages to contain keywords people are looking for and ensure that they rank high enough in search engine rankings. Most search engines include some form of link popularity in their ranking algorithms. The following are major tools measuring various aspects of saturation and link popularity: Link Popularity, Top 10 Google Analysis, and Marketleap's Link Popularity and Search Engine Saturation.
  3. Back end tools, including Web analytic tools and HTML validators, provide data on a website and its visitors and allow the success of a website to be measured. They range from simple traffic counters to tools that work with log files and to more sophisticated tools that are based on page tagging (putting JavaScript or an image on a page to track actions). These tools can deliver conversion-related information. There are three major tools used by EBSCO: (a) log file analyzing tool: WebTrends by NetiQ; (b) tag-based analytic tool: WebSideStory's Hitbox; and (c) transaction-based tool: TeaLeaf RealiTea. Validators check the invisible parts of websites, highlighting potential problems and many usability issues and ensuring websites meet W3C code standards. Try to use more than one HTML validator or spider simulator because each one tests, highlights, and reports on slightly different aspects of your website.
  4. Whois tools reveal the owners of various websites, and can provide valuable information relating to copyright and trademark issues.
  5. Google Mobile-Friendly Website Checker: This test will analyze a URL and report if the page has a mobile-friendly design.[14]

Paid inclusion

Paid inclusion involves a search engine company charging fees for the inclusion of a website in their results pages. Also known as sponsored listings, paid inclusion products are provided by most search engine companies either in the main results area, or as a separately identified advertising area.

The fee structure is both a filter against superfluous submissions and a revenue generator. Typically, the fee covers an annual subscription for one webpage, which will automatically be catalogued on a regular basis. However, some companies are experimenting with non-subscription based fee structures where purchased listings are displayed permanently. A per-click fee may also apply. Each search engine is different. Some sites allow only paid inclusion, although these have had little success. More frequently, many search engines, like Yahoo!,[15] mix paid inclusion (per-page and per-click fee) with results from web crawling. Others, like Google (and as of 2006, Ask.com[16][17]), do not let webmasters pay to be in their search engine listing (advertisements are shown separately and labeled as such).

Some detractors of paid inclusion allege that it causes searches to return results based more on the economic standing of the interests of a web site, and less on the relevancy of that site to end-users.

Often the line between pay per click advertising and paid inclusion is debatable. Some have lobbied for any paid listings to be labeled as an advertisement, while defenders insist they are not actually ads since the webmasters do not control the content of the listing, its ranking, or even whether it is shown to any users. Another advantage of paid inclusion is that it allows site owners to specify particular schedules for crawling pages. In the general case, one has no control as to when their page will be crawled or added to a search engine index. Paid inclusion proves to be particularly useful for cases where pages are dynamically generated and frequently modified.

Paid inclusion is a search engine marketing method in itself, but also a tool of search engine optimization, since experts and firms can test out different approaches to improving ranking and see the results often within a couple of days, instead of waiting weeks or months. Knowledge gained this way can be used to optimize other web pages, without paying the search engine company.

Comparison with SEO

SEM is the wider discipline that incorporates SEO. SEM includes both paid search results (using tools like Google Adwords or Bing Ads, formerly known as Microsoft adCenter) and organic search results (SEO). SEM uses paid advertising with AdWords or Bing Ads, pay per click (particularly beneficial for local providers as it enables potential consumers to contact a company directly with one click), article submissions, advertising and making sure SEO has been done. A keyword analysis is performed for both SEO and SEM, but not necessarily at the same time. SEM and SEO both need to be monitored and updated frequently to reflect evolving best practices.

In some contexts, the term SEM is used exclusively to mean pay per click advertising,[2] particularly in the commercial advertising and marketing communities which have a vested interest in this narrow definition. Such usage excludes the wider search marketing community that is engaged in other forms of SEM such as search engine optimization and search retargeting.

Another part of SEM is social media marketing (SMM). SMM is a type of marketing that involves exploiting social media to influence consumers that one company’s products and/or services are valuable.[18] Some of the latest theoretical advances include search engine marketing management (SEMM). SEMM relates to activities including SEO but focuses on return on investment (ROI) management instead of relevant traffic building (as is the case of mainstream SEO). SEMM also integrates organic SEO, trying to achieve top ranking without using paid means to achieve it, and pay per click SEO. For example, some of the attention is placed on the web page layout design and how content and information is displayed to the website visitor. SEO & SEM are two pillars of one marketing job and they both run side by side to produce much better results than focusing on only one pillar.

Ethical questions

Paid search advertising has not been without controversy, and the issue of how search engines present advertising on their search result pages has been the target of a series of studies and reports[19][20][21] by Consumer Reports WebWatch. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) also issued a letter[22] in 2002 about the importance of disclosure of paid advertising on search engines, in response to a complaint from Commercial Alert, a consumer advocacy group with ties to Ralph Nader.

Another ethical controversy associated with search marketing has been the issue of trademark infringement. The debate as to whether third parties should have the right to bid on their competitors' brand names has been underway for years. In 2009 Google changed their policy, which formerly prohibited these tactics, allowing 3rd parties to bid on branded terms as long as their landing page in fact provides information on the trademarked term.[23] Though the policy has been changed this continues to be a source of heated debate.[24]

On April 24, 2012 many started to see that Google has started to penalize companies that are buying links for the purpose of passing off the rank. The Google Update was called Penguin. Since then, there has been several different Penguin / Panda updates rolled out by Google. SEM has, however, nothing to do with link buying and focuses on organic SEO and PPC management. As of October 20, 2014 Google has released three official revisions of their Penguin Update.

Examples

AdWords is recognized as a web-based advertising utensil since it adopts keywords which can deliver adverts explicitly to web users looking for information in respect to a certain product or service. This project is highly practical for advertisers as the project hinges on cost per click (CPC) pricing, thus the payment of the service only applies if their advert has been clicked on. SEM companies have embarked on AdWords projects as a way to publicize their SEM and SEO services. This promotion has helped their business elaborate, offering added value to consumers who endeavor to employ AdWords for promoting their products and services. One of the most successful approaches to the strategy of this project was to focus on making sure that PPC advertising funds were prudently invested. Moreover, SEM companies have described AdWords as a fine practical tool for increasing a consumer’s investment earnings on Internet advertising. The use of conversion tracking and Google Analytics tools was deemed to be practical for presenting to clients the performance of their canvas from click to conversion. AdWords project has enabled SEM companies to train their clients on the utensil and delivers better performance to the canvass. The assistance of AdWord canvass could contribute to the huge success in the growth of web traffic for a number of its consumer’s websites, by as much as 250% in only nine months.[25]

Another way search engine marketing is managed is by contextual advertising. Here marketers place ads on other sites or portals that carry information relevant to their products so that the ads jump into the circle of vision of browsers who are seeking information from those sites. A successful SEM plan is the approach to capture the relationships amongst information searchers, businesses, and search engines. Search engines were not important to some industries in the past, but over the past years the use of search engines for accessing information has become vital to increase business opportunities.[26] The use of SEM strategic tools for businesses such as tourism can attract potential consumers to view their products, but it could also pose various challenges.[26] These challenges could be the competition that companies face amongst their industry and other sources of information that could draw the attention of online consumers.[26] To assist the combat of challenges, the main objective for businesses applying SEM is to improve and maintain their ranking as high as possible on SERPs so that they can gain visibility. Therefore, search engines are adjusting and developing algorithms and the shifting criteria by which web pages are ranked sequentially to combat against search engine misuse and spamming, and to supply the most relevant information to searchers.[26] This could enhance the relationship amongst information searchers, businesses, and search engines by understanding the strategies of marketing to attract business.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "The State of Search Engine Marketing 2006". Search Engine Land. February 8, 2007. Retrieved 2007-06-07.
  2. 1 2 "Does SEM = SEO + CPC Still Add Up?". searchengineland.com. Retrieved 2010-03-05.
  3. ↑ SearchEngineLand
  4. ↑
  5. ↑ Elliott, Stuart (March 14, 2006). "More Agencies Investing in Marketing With a Click". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-06-07.
  6. ↑ "Engine sells results, draws fire". news.cnet.com. June 21, 1996. Retrieved 2007-06-09.
  7. ↑ "GoTo Sells Positions". searchenginewatch.com. March 3, 1998. Retrieved 2007-06-09.
  8. ↑ "GoTo gambles with new name". news.cnet.com. September 10, 2001. Retrieved 2007-06-09.
  9. ↑ Jansen, B. J. (May 2007). "The Comparative Effectiveness of Sponsored and Nonsponsored Links for Web E-commerce Queries" (PDF). ACM Transactions on the Web,. Retrieved 2007-06-09.
  10. ↑ "Microsoft-Yahoo Deal Gets Green Light". informationweek.com. February 18, 2010. Retrieved 2010-07-15.
  11. ↑ "Does SEM = SEO + CPC Still Add Up?". searchengineland.com. March 4, 2010. Retrieved 2013-10-06.
  12. ↑ Otis, Rebecca (November 2013). "Use These Tools for Smart Digital Marketing". Digital Third Coast. Retrieved 2014-01-20.
  13. ↑ "Search Perception Impact". Retrieved 27 March 2014.
  14. ↑ https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/
  15. ↑ Zawodny, Jeremy (2004-03-01). "Defending Paid Inclusions".
  16. ↑ Ulbrich, Chris (2004-07-06). "Paid Inclusion Losing Charm?". Wired News.
  17. ↑ "FAQ #18: How do I register my site/URL with Ask so that it will be indexed?". Ask.com. Retrieved 2008-12-19.
  18. ↑ Susan Ward (2011). "Social Media Marketing". About.com. Retrieved 2011-04-22.
  19. ↑ "False Oracles: Consumer Reaction to Learning the Truth About How Search Engines Work (Abstract)". consumerwebwatch.org. June 30, 2003. Retrieved 2007-06-09.
  20. ↑ "Searching for Disclosure: How Search Engines Alert Consumers to the Presence of Advertising in Search Results". consumerwebwatch.org. November 8, 2004. Retrieved 2007-06-09.
  21. ↑ "Still in Search of Disclosure: Re-evaluating How Search Engines Explain the Presence of Advertising in Search Results". consumerwebwatch.org. June 9, 2005. Retrieved 2007-06-09.
  22. ↑ "Re: Complaint Requesting Investigation of Various Internet Search Engine Companies for Paid Placement or (Pay per click)". ftc.gov. June 22, 2002. Retrieved 2007-06-09.
  23. ↑ "Update to U.S. ad text trademark policy". adwords.blogspot.com. May 14, 2009. Retrieved 2010-07-15.
  24. ↑ Rosso, Mark; Jansen, Bernard (Jim) (August 2010), "Brand Names as Keywords in Sponsored Search Advertising", Communications of the Association for Information Systems 27 (1): 81–98
  25. ↑ "Google Adwords Case Study" (PDF). AccuraCast. 2007. Retrieved 2011-03-30. |first1= missing |last1= in Authors list (help)
  26. 1 2 3 4 Zheng Xiang, Bing Pan, Rob Law, and Daniel R. Fesenmaier (June 7, 2010). "Assessing the Visibility of Destination Marketing Organizations in Google: A Case Study of Convention and Visitor Bureau Websites in the United States" (PDF). Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing. Retrieved 2011-04-22.
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