I define SEM (Search Engine Marketing) as the process of using the Internet to market something. The something can be a product, service, charity solicitation, organization or political candidate, in fact virtually anything. SEM encompasses SEO (Search Engine Optimization), e-mail marketing and Internet advertising.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the process of modifying the content of pages and the incoming links to a page as well as many other factors, to attempt to have the web site appear as close to the top of search results as possible. These results are known as ‘organic’ or ‘natural’ search results. In Google these results are not paid for. PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising refers to the advertisements that you see above and to the right of the Google search results. With the Google advertising model the position of the advert is determined by the amount you pay when someone clicks on the advertisement and other factors such as the ‘quality’ of the advertisement which Google measures by the ‘click through rate’, i.e. the ratio of people clicking on the advert divided by the number of times the advert appears. With PPC advertising you can set the maximum you are prepared to pay per month and the maximum that you are willing to pay for a click. The other major part of the PPC click system are the keyword phrases. Each keyword phrase has a maximum amount that you are prepared to pay if your ad appears as a result of someone tying in your keyword phrase (or something similar). E-mail marketing is any marketing conducted through the sending of e-mails. This could e as simple as an individual sending an e-mail to someone else. It usually refers to mass e-mailings where many e-mails to people who have ‘opted-in’ to receive e-mail. Social media marketing is defined by Technology in Translation as: “Social media describes a new set of Internet tools that enable shared community experiences, both online and in person.1“

SEM Planning is the process of looking at your Internet marketing situation strategically, deciding what you want to achieve and how you plan to achieve it using SEM. SEM Planning is a subset of marketing planning, however for many organizations the value of traditional marketing promotions (such as print advertising, exhibitions, TV advertising etc) are becoming increasingly less ineffective, too expensive or both.

There are many resources that provide information on the subject of SEM tools and techniques that you can use. These resources describe the ‘how.’ The literature available on how to plan the use of these tools and techniques, in other words the what and when, is more scare.

If you want to landscape your yard you would need several tools, a pile of dirt, bags of fertilizer and plants. If these elements all arrived on your driveway and you didn’t have a plan as to how you were going to use them, the results would not be as successful as if you knew exactly where everything was going to be planted and what nurturing the plants required. Furthermore, you would probably find that some of your resources had not been used and you were short of other things that your needed.

It is exactly the same with SEM. The Internet and the opportunities it provides are the resources at your disposal. Incredible, affordable and infinitely measurable resources, but to use them effectively you need a plan.

Glossary

Throughout this text I will use several terms which you may not be familiar with.

• HTML - Hyper Text Markup Language
• Anchor text - Text included in link syntax that appears in the browser. If clicked, the browser links to the new document. For example, in the link:
  <a href=”http://www.semplanning.com” >All you need to know about SEM Planning</a>
  The term ‘ All you need to know about SEM Planning,” is the anchor text.
• Backlink - A link from somewhere on the web to a page on your site
• Code - Computer programs
• SERPS - Search Engine Results Pages
• SEO - Search Engine Optimization
• SEM - Search Engine Marketing
• SPAM - when used in the context of e-mail this normally refers to unsolicited bulk e-mail. When used in the context of SEO it refers to creating web pages with the deliberate intent of tricking the search engines.
• Domaining - the registering of domain names with a view to selling the domain name in the future, at a profit.
• URL - Uniform Resource Locator - this is the global address of a web site and is made up of 2 parts. The first is the ‘protocol’, eg. http:// or ftp:// and the second the domain name, e.g. semplanning.com.

 

1“Technology in Translation™: a Definition of Social Media.” Technology in Translation. 3 Mar. 2008 <http://technologyintranslation.blockwork.org/2007/04/a_social_media_.html>.

Filed under: Uncategorized by Martyn Whittaker