SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING (SEM)

SEM is an acronym for Search Engine Marketing, e.g. ensuring a standards compliant website is indexed by major search engines, for listing success on Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask. It also requires a level of online promotion which can involve Google Adwords advertising, Internet directory sponsorships, online banner advertising and strategic back-linking from industry partners.

Website SEM starts with developing an understanding on a site's performance on search engines for search terms relating to core business services and products. SEM requires analysis of website traffic statistics, which can be done at the hosting server level and search engine level with Google Analytics, to determine which search terms and referring websites brought traffic to a site.

A good way to begin SEM is with a target list of popular keywords (from Google's keyword search tool) and analysis of a website's organic listing performance on major search engines for these keywords, e.g. benchmarking a site's listings for particular searches.

 

Some analysis is required on whether organic listing success on Google page 1 is possible? This is determined by Google's page rank score (a measure of a site's importance), or if sponsored listing methods will be required, like Google Adwords advertising, which can be effective for new sites or businesses in competitive online industries.

We determine organic success possibility by looking at the top ten listings on Google page 1 for a particular search term, then evaluate the Page Ranking Score Range (PRSR) for these sites, e.g. if a client's page rank is 1/10 (average small site score) and Google's page 1 PRSR for top ten listings is between 1-3/10, then optimising the site for this search term is worth while. However if the PRSR is 3-6/10 then developing a different search term would be more beneficial.

 

To learn more about our website success, click here for our Ten Website Marketing Secrets. To request our Free 60 Point Website Standards Marketing Audit click here, and we'll review your site and advise on the methods to improve search results.