Search Engine Marketing

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is the process of promoting your website through the use of search engine result pages (SERPS) using paid placement advertising. Online advertising today falls under several different categories and or methods. The most popular and effective methods are pay per click (PPC) advertising and e-mail marketing. Here is a brief description of both:

Pay Per Click (PPC) or Cost Per Click (CPC) Advertising:

This method is the most popular method of paying for advertising on the Internet. It is used by Google Adwords, social media networks, comparison shopping networks, banner advertising networks, and many others. The basic premise is that you pay a certain pre-determined amount for each time a person clicks on your advertisement or banner. Below is an example of basic Google Adwords advertising that you typically see along the right-hand column of their search engine. Typically speaking you pay anywhere from about 15 cents a click all the way up to several dollars a click, depending on the time of day, the keywords you are requesting, and what others are willing to bid to get a higher placing than you.

There are dozens of factors that go into developing a good Google Adwords campaign. In fact, there have been hundreds of books written on the topic itself. Our staff can help you develop an Adwords campaign by choosing the right keywords to reach your target audience, establishing the proper daily budget, and setting up the parameters for when the ads should run and when they should not. Additionally, we will help you manage your reporting so that you can track your progress and make decisions about future campaigns. Our ultimate goal would be to train your staff on how to manage your account and develop new campaigns for future results. Having a professional assist you in this process will save you a ton of money overall.

E-Mail Marketing/Advertising:

This method of advertising is effective as long as you are targeting the right group of people. Companies will often sell you e-mail lists of people without regard for what the interests of those people are. That is ineffective advertising. It is like trying to sell exercise equipment to retirement homes. Granted you might get a few sales out of it, but overall you are missing the market entirely. Our marketing staff will work with you to locate the correct marketing lists of individuals who are looking for your particular products or services and who have elected to receive e-mail material from advertisers. We recently worked with an Orange County camera equipment wholesaler who was looking to increase their camera equipment sales in California. A large majority of their business is online yet they wanted to start establishing retail locations starting in the northern Orange County area. We immediately started locating e-mail lists for them by focusing our efforts where most photographers have a tendency to congregate. We found those areas to be magazines and online publications. We found tens of thousands of photographers in California who subscribe to these services. Within a few advertising campaigns we were able to increase the distribution of the company’s electronic equipment by approximately 35%. That equated to a net return on their advertising investment of $6.57 for every dollar spent in advertising. E-mail advertising can be extremely profitable if properly executed. Let our staff help you design the right promotion for your company.