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Search Engine Marketing Defined
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Search engine marketing, or SEM, is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs). According to the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization, SEM methods include: search engine optimization (or SEO), paid placement, and paid inclusion. Other sources, including the New York Times, define SEM as the practice of buying paid search listings.
Search engine marketing involves click costs. Search engine optimization works through free traffic. Those two facts are the basis of a popular myth: that it's easier to get good ROI through SEO than it is to get the same ROI through SEM.
In SEM, you decide the landing page your visitors see. In SEO, a search engine spider decides on the landing page visitors see. That's a difference in control, and that difference makes all the difference.
In both SEO and SEM, you only hit ROI if your searchers convert. An SEM firm might require a higher initial investment than an SEO firm does (because SEM requires the management cost, plus the PPC cost; while SEO only costs the price of management alone) - but you're also likely to get better conversions through SEM, because you're likely to get better landing pages through SEM. And it's only conversions that will get you ROI.
So good SEO is absolutely vital to strong internet marketing. But saying that SEO will get better ROI than SEM - because organic traffic is free - ignores the most important element of SEM: control. And it's control that makes all the difference between getting traffic, and getting traffic that converts (http://www.dmnews.com/SEO-Isnt-SEM/article/89604/).
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Most Recent Search Marketing Clips
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Search Engine Marketing Trends and Statistics How Yahoo! Actually Leads Paid Search | clipped by: fuordigital
The Undiscovered Best: How Yahoo! Actually Leads Paid Search Looking at paid clicks, or referrals, as a % of total search queries, we see a fairly familiar picture.
However, not all queries are created equal. As Jeremy Crane pointed out many queries do not lead to referral. Many of the unfulfilled queries are probably due to searchers not finding what they’re looking for. Many queries are also informational and can be answered right there on the SERP.
As you can see, Google answers the query on the top of the SERP with a handy conversion calculator, while Yahoo! doesn’t. Instead, Yahoo! offers paid results from Calibex and BizRate.
For users, it’s great to get the desired information right there on the SERP, without having to click-through to another page. For search engines, it’s a missed opportunity to monetize a search.
Thus a more appropriate online metric for measuring search monetization might be paid referrals as a % total referrals.
| | 11/3/2008 7:13:38 AM |
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Search Engine Marketing Trends and Statistics MSN Cashback Search Strategy Successfully Attracting Visitors | clipped by: fuordigital
MSN Cashback successfully attracting visitors
This week MSN announced the launch of SearchPerks!, a new promotion that rewards visitors that use Live Search with tickets redeemable for various prizes. The latest endeavor is separate from the Live Search Cashback rebate program launched a few months ago, but certainly uses a similar tactic (pay for search) to reach the same goal (drive search activity) on MSN’s search properties (including both MSN Search & Windows Live Search). So far the question has been are people using Cashback? Is it a successful promotion - particularly with the launch of another?
Who is visiting MSN Cashback? For the 4 weeks ending Sept. 27, 2008, the visitors to MSN Cashback were skewed slightly more female and represented 55% of traffic. Nearly half of the visitors were between the ages of 25 to 44: 22% were aged 25 to 34 and 27% aged 35 to 44. The majority of the visitors have a HH income of under $100k.
| | 10/4/2008 8:25:23 PM |
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Search Engine Marketing Trends and Statistics Asian Search Marketing by Country July 2008 | clipped by: fuordigital
| Country |
Audience, 000 |
Searches, mln. |
Searches
per user |
| Total Internet |
335,124 |
27,059 |
80.7 |
| China |
143,502 |
10,994 |
76.6 |
| Japan |
61,117 |
6,162 |
100.8 |
| India |
23,397 |
1,192 |
51.0 |
| Korea |
20,429 |
2,101 |
102.8 |
| Taiwan |
10,002 |
748 |
74.8 |
| Australia |
8,380 |
855 |
102.0 |
| Malaysia |
6,710 |
431 |
64.2 |
| Hong Kong |
2,812 |
228 |
81.0 |
| Singapore |
1,662 |
152 |
91.2 |
| New Zealand |
1,564 |
136 |
87.2 |
| Source: comScore |
| | 9/28/2008 2:57:09 PM |
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Search Engine Marketing Trends and Statistics Who gets traffic from paid search engine marketing | clipped by: fuordigital
| Category |
Aug-08 |
Jul-08 |
Growth |
| Shopping - Office Supplies |
43.15% |
39.81% |
8% |
| Travel - Agencies |
35.32% |
39.28% |
-10% |
| Business - Telecommunications |
30.97% |
28.77% |
8% |
| Business - Legal |
30.72% |
32.18% |
-5% |
| Pharmaceutical and Medical Products |
30.43% |
29.95% |
2% |
| Source: Hitwise |
| | 9/24/2008 7:05:03 PM |
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Search Engine Marketing Trends and Statistics Less Intrusive and New Online Ad Formats Perceived Most Positively by Consumers | clipped by: fuordigital
Less Intrusive and New Online Ad Formats Perceived Most Positively by Consumers
The top five most popular (or least unpopular) Web ad formats are:
- Banners
- Skyscrapers
- Advergames*
- "Ghost" ads*
- Video ads & audio ads

The top five most popular (or least unpopular) Web ad formats are:
- Banners
- Skyscrapers
- Advergames*
- "Ghost" ads*
- Video ads & audio ads
| | 9/24/2008 2:18:15 PM |
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